Air
by lint.zzzz
Summary: A road trip, complete with Greek takeout and denial.  Roughly 2007-movieverse.
1. MaskUnmask

Air

a fic by lint. zzzz

Summary: A road trip, complete with Greek takeout and denial. Roughly 2007-movieverse.

Warnings: Swearing. OCs. Angst. First person present. More angst.

Notes: This story takes place one year after the events of the 2007 CGI movie. Also, any segment that starts with a time is a flashback to one 24-hour period. No offense meant to residents of the locales mentioned. See end for more specific notes.

Disclaimer: I own no copyrighted characters contained herein. (As if I'd _want_ responsibility for these guys. Shyeah, right.)

Length: 4127

0o000o000o0o0o000o00o0o0

1. Mask/Unmask

I'm about an hour west of Nashville when I drop the bike. It's raining hard, and just as I'm coming out from under an overpass, lightning strikes in the forest off to the right. I instinctually lay into the brakes, but don't pull up the rear quite hard enough, and before I can think to correct it, I'm down, a lowside slide that seems to stretch seconds into centuries. The tires lose grip instantly, and the ground jumps up at me like an angry lion, the roar of steel against wet asphalt rattling and screaming through my ears. I just lay there for a moment when the pavement stills, until I'm sure the only pounding I'm taking is from the rain.

The bike's still running. I'd like to say it's taken worse, but I don't think I can remember when. I know I've definitely seen better days. But the armor's taken the brunt of the damage for me; although I know I'm going to have some colorful bruises all down my right leg and arm, I'm basically intact. All I can see in the headlight is rain and road stripes, and at midnight, there's nobody around to notice as I heave the thing back on its tires and head back for the overpass. Just the sound of drops slamming into the helmet is driving me nuts. At speed it's unnoticeable; just blends into the sounds of engine and tires on pavement and air hissing past. But walking, it's like being trapped inside a bell.

I'm limping pretty decently by the time I make it back to shelter, and my arm feels like it's going to fall off. I prop the bike up on its stand and flop to the pavement behind it. Air. I need air. My hands find a long scrape in the helmet when I go to pull it off my head, and it's even worse to look at. I wonder vaguely just how hard I went down, how long until my ears stop ringing, but I can't bring myself to really care. I feel like I've been wrapped in fog, despite the post-adrenaline shakes, like my entire self is as numb as my tail from riding over twenty-four hours straight.

I stare at the gouge in the helmet, and start to laugh. There's nothing else to do.

I said I needed some air. 8:12, the night before.

New York to Nashville. That's a hell of a lot of air.

I put the helmet back on and lean against the front wheel of the bike, and wait for the rain to let up.

o0o0o00o0o00o0o00o00o

8:10 p.m. Mike's sitting across the table from me, and he's not talking. There's pizza, untouched, in a box on the table. He stares at the box. I stare at the box. I'm not talking, either. I hear the numbers on the oven clock flap over to 8:11.

Leo and Don are in the dojo, talking, not fighting, but they're quiet enough I can't make out what they're saying. Me, I can't trust anything rational to come out of my mouth right now. So I sit there with Mike, and we stare at anything besides each other. The pizza, cold now.

The oven numbers clack to 8:12. The sound grates on the one thin thread of my patience, and I feel it start to fray.

I am not going to lose it, not here, not now.

I need some air, I say. I think Mike tries to stop me.

00o0o0o0o00000o0o0o0o0o0

The rain's down to a spatter, and it'll be dawn in a few hours. I can't stay here; next time a cop drives by, he's gonna want to stop and help, and that's more trouble that I don't need. No traffic, so I go to check out the median.

Nuh-uh. It's basically one big puddle; mud and weeds and who knows what else. The bike's not sprung for offroading, and seeing how dark it is, I'd probably slip and end up flat on my shell again. Guess I'll just have to turn around at the next exit.

I use the meager lights in the overpass to check out the bike. It's not the prettiest thing in the world, but it's mine, and I know every bolt and line and bearing. The frame's still true, the chain and the steering's fine, nothing seems to be leaking, and electronics all check out okay. The only thing is the right front fairing, it's all bashed up, but that's just decorative, really; not bad enough to screw up the aerodynamics. Could've been a lot worse.

I take it easy for the three miles to the next exit, just to make sure the bike's not going to fall apart.

It's fine. Me, not so much. My shoulder's screaming from holding the same position for five minutes, and my knee's not much better. It's not anything that a few aspirin and a good workout won't cure, but I don't have one or space for the other without attracting attention. Maybe if I find a deserted rest area...

There's a chain gas station at the next exit, and I take the opportunity to fill up while there's nobody around. I'm trying to convince the cash machine to take a battered five when a big pickup pulls up next to me. The driver gets out and goes into the convenience store, leaving the kid in the back of the crew cab.

I go back to the pump, and I can feel the kid's eyes on me. I look out the corner of my eye; he's maybe five years old, toy car in one hand and the other smudging up the corner of the window. He's staring at me, mouth open in an O like he's just seen some movie car crash. The man comes out of the convenience store then, carrying a cup of coffee, a sack of donut holes, and a bottle of juice. He hands the juice and donuts in to the kid and comes around to the other side of the truck to pump gas, the coffee still in hand.

Damn, I'd do fifty flips for that coffee right about now.

The kid's watching him now, not me, the OJ having replaced the car in his hand. He looks happy, grinning like an idiot.

"What're you staring at, asshole?"

I turn my attention back to the bike just in time to keep the tank from overfilling. I decide I don't really need to go inside for eleven cents change, and start up the engine. I take a look over my shoulder as I'm pulling out of the station. Dad's still staring at me, the kid needs a napkin, and I can see the tips of three fishing poles hanging out the back of the truck.

There's two stickers on the tailgate, on either side of the license plate; the first is a stylized fish, the second's a American flag, with 'These Colors Don't Run' printed next to it.

Good thing Dad didn't look too close and see I only had three fingers. I'm not in the mood to kick some jerk's ass in front of his son.

I wait for a semi to pass before pulling out onto the road. The rain's all but stopped now, leaving the morning still and soggy. I pull out on the road, taking it easy on the wet pavement. The onramp for the westbound lanes is a block away, the eastbound on the other side of the overpass.

I glance back at the truck one more time. I can't see the kid, but Dad's still watching me.

I'm not a good son. I'm dishonorable, and untrustworthy, and disrespectful, and all the air in the world isn't going to change that fact.

I gun the engine back onto to the freeway. Jackson, 45 miles.

o0o000o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Precursor to morning rush hour in Memphis.

There's a flashing sign up by the side of the road; there's not much traffic, but I'm there long enough that I've memorized the message.

_ AMBER ALERT  
><em>_1997 FORD F-150  
><em>_AL 7BF889E_

I can't help but think of the kid in the gas station. The truck had Alabama plates.

o0o0000o0o0o0oo0o00o00o0o

It's March. It's not supposed to be snowing. There's not supposed to be forests and ski resorts in New Mexico. But it is, and there are. The rest stop I've pulled over at is completely deserted, blanketed in a two-inch carpet of white under the sick orange glare of arc-sodium streetlights, and the silence when I turn off the bike's engine is monumental.

It reminds me of the farmhouse. I don't want to think about that.

Business first. I lock myself in a dingy stall in the mens and peel off the armor so I can check out the damage from when I dumped the bike.

The entirety of the outside of my right leg, from my knee nearly up to my hip, is completely black. Not the olive-brown that my skin usually turns when bruised, but ink black. It almost looks like it's dripping down underneath the skin. My arm's worse, though. I can barely get the shoulder guard off, it's swollen so tight. And it's not just the hard bruises where I hit the ground, but in other places, too. The front of my shoulder, along the collarbone; feels like I've been clubbed. And my thumb's tingling too, almost a pins-and-needles feeling.

It still moves like it's supposed to, though. A few aspirin, maybe an ice pack, and it's basically fine. Right.

Putting the armor back on hurts ten times as much as taking it off.

I drop a dollar into the vending machine outside and get a Coke, and hide in the shadows of the picnic area for my very own private pity party.

My tail's numb.

I hurt.

It's fucking cold, and I'm cold-blooded.

The security light's buzzing loud enough it sounds ready to explode.

I'm in New Mexico.

I'm in.

Fucking.

New Mexico.

Why in the name of all that's sacred am I in New Mexico? Why am I not at home, back where all common sense says I should be? Why do I take every opportunity to do the exact worst thing possible?

Pretty much answered my own question, there. Who am I, to do otherwise?

I sit down on a picnic table and take the helmet off to take a swig of Coke. I don't think anything gets to my throat; the liquid gets sucked up by my mouth and tongue before it has the chance.

Two days, now. It's the first thing I've had to drink.

I lean my elbows on my knees and rest my head in my hands, and that's how I find the bruise on my head. At my right temple, just above where my bandana would be. Should've known. It's a fair-sized lump, but I doubt it's done any worse damage than to spoil my shockingly good looks. I would've noticed if I'd had a concussion. Basically fine. I take a long drink and lay my hurting head on top of my hurting arm on top of my hurting knee.

I'd like to think I'm holding it together pretty well, considering.

0o0o0o0o0o0o00o00o0o0o0

11:48 p.m. The bike's parked behind a dumpster in a relatively safe alleyway, and I'm up on the roof getting some air. Really. Usually when I say I'm going out, what I actually mean is that I want to beat the crap out of something, and I'm going to find someone who deserves it. It's no secret; everyone knows it. But I've been there, done that already tonight, and the fight's all gone out of me. Didn't think that could happen.

You can smell the river tonight. It's halfway between ocean and old socks, and the breeze is brisk with a hint of winter, still. I hang my feet off over the edge of the building, bike helmet resting on my knee, and listen to the city.

Eight million people, living out their lives between the street and the ceiling, with no idea what might be under their feet or above their heads. All the dealers, the gangbangers, the murderers and rapists and muggers, they're all innocent in that light. I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world.

I could lose myself here, if I wanted. If I tried.

A hiccup of a siren, two blocks north and west, and I'm no longer lost. I put the helmet back on and leap across the rooftops towards its destination. It's a disco inferno of red-and-blue when I get there, three Crown Vics and an ambulance, and I stay in the rooftop shadows. The street's their home turf, not mine.

The paramedics look bored. That's never a good sign. That means there's nothing left for them to do.

He's laying against a dumpster, head cocked to the left as if he were watching something vaguely amusing. Nothing funny about the rest of him, though; shotgun wounds just aren't pretty. The trauma and dispersal pattern look like it was a sawed-off. Lousy aim, but easier to carry. Easy to get in close. I'd say two shots, from a range of maybe a dozen feet. The view from three stories up isn't great, but I've seen enough of this kind of thing to know what I'm looking at.

The guy's got the attention of two cops, plainclothes with the baggies and uniform with the chalk line. His girl's pulled the rest of them like flies, though, floodlights and forensics and all. She's lounging against the garbage bags set out at the other end of the dumpster; Cleopatra-like, if you ignore the bruises and stab wounds and torn clothes. And the bits of her insides that seem to have gone missing.

I don't watch the night any more. I don't hold the knife, but I can't help but think that makes me just as guilty as the ones who do.

12:03 a.m. Bike's back in the alley.

Just ride away.

I taste teeth.

o000000o0o0o000o0oo0o0

The bike's engine's kept me warm through the mountains, and the tail of a storm that I found in New Mexico is surrendering east. Slowly. At least I think it's heading east. Which would mean I'm going west. There was more snow and a bit of a mix-up in Denver, and now I'm not even sure what state I'm in.

Literally or figuratively. Ha ha, funny.

It's probably about an hour to sunrise, and the full moonlight is eerie in the high desert. The Rockies are mostly behind me; I'm riding through scrub sage with mountain ranges as distant shadows, snow glistening in blue-white patches. The stars flicker above through the patchy clouds, closer and brighter than I imagined they could be. You don't see stars much in New York; there's too much light and smog. But here, they stretch horizon to horizon, uncountable, immeasurable, with not even a tree to shelter.

Maybe this is what meditation is supposed to feel like.

I've half a mind to run off into the middle of this nowhere and find a cave, and live there. I could hunt deer and drink from streams and make fire with sticks and flint. And watch this sky, every night, learn its infinity.

Fuck.

Who am I kidding? I could never do that. I don't have the patience, even if I deserved it.

The bike doesn't even slow.

There's a roadsign up ahead. I don't know three of the towns, but the fourth is Las Vegas. 323 miles.

I'm in...whatever state's east of Nevada. Don't know much geography.

The harsh song of the bike's engine cuts the silence of the night. Sin City, sounds like my kind of town.

o0o0000o000o00o0o0o0o0o

Vegas is hot. Tourists are all in shorts and sandals, and they're everywhere, skipping down the strip and staring at the lights even though it's midday.

Shouldn't have gotten off the freeway. But part of me was curious, to see not a city that didn't sleep, but where time of day honestly didn't matter. At least in New York night is night and day is day. But Vegas has its own special time, shut off in a bubble from the rest of the world. Kinda makes me sick.

Or maybe that's just me being hungry. Doesn't matter much either way.

I'm at a stoplight between Caesar's Palace and the Flamingo. Early afternoon in the very beginning of spring and there's still traffic. True, it's a Sunday, but it's way too early to go out partying. Then again, the way people are dressed, you could hardly tell the difference.

I'm used to New York. I know the buildings, the traffic, the tourists, the sense of restlessness. This is different. It's almost like...hell, like it's got its own gravity, or some sci-fi shit like that. Like it should collapse inward on itself, swallowed whole by the desert. I wouldn't be surprised to find out there's aliens running the whole thing; see just what humans'll do for a tub of quarters.

A good dozen bikers pull up around and behind me, weaving in and out through the stopped cars. They're the first major stereotype of bikerdom, Wannabe Hell's Angels. The guy just to my left's checking me out; he's got the requisite brain-bucket helmet, t-shirt and leather vest with tassels, chaps, boots with as much bling as his ride. The way he's looking at me tells me he thinks I'm the second stereotype of bikerdom, the Sportbike Idiot, and therefore his natural enemy. He revs the V-Twin a couple times, a smirk unfolding under the nicotine gray-blond tails of his moustache.

I'm not going to race you, fuckwad.

My fingers itch for the throttle, but I've still got enough sense of mind to keep them still. The bike's plates are real, but the registration's fake, and I don't have a license or insurance. Drawbacks of not being human. And I know there's a cop in the far left lane, about five cars back.

But still.

He's got a classic Harley, looks all original except for the extra chrome. And this bike...well, let's just say Donnie took it on as a special project after he found me and Casey up in the garage one night, trying to gap spark plugs. It's still true to the spirit of the original, but other than that, they'd never recognize it at the factory.

Part of me wants to grin at the memory, but that bit's ancient history, drowned two and a half days ago.

The light turns green. The guy next to me speeds away, the rhinestones on his vest red diamonds in the desert sun. Santa's Helper, they spell out. Not a clue. Sure as hell the guy ain't no elf.

The rest of the gang passes me by the end of the intersection, ducking and weaving through traffic. It's cosmic justice when, three blocks later, I see the cop in the left lane has pulled my buddy off on a side street.

I follow the speed limit like a good law-abiding citizen, all the way back to the freeway. And then I open the taps. Cops are all chasing the nitwits on the Boulevard.

00o0o000o00o0o0o0o00o0o

3:21 a.m. Casey's truck's still parked outside the warehouse, which means that he and April are down with my brothers, doing what needs to be done. I can't think on it; it's tangles in a fishing reel, throw out the line until it stops, inextricable. I speed past and let the streets lead me away. Cruising, asphalt lines a yellow brick road.

Red light, red light, green light. Red. Some of these neighborhoods the sunlight doesn't reach, buildings too close. The lane leads me into a right turn and I follow the path set out for me. Can't go home now, can't look anyone in the eye and listen. Dishonorable. I trace a square-cut maze through the streets; past the park, through alphabet city, down theatre row, one side of the city to the other.

My lane swerves away from the rest, angling off to the right. I follow it. It parallels another street for a bit, nearly deserted at this time of night. Up, around, then down, into a concrete catacomb. Bright white light, roar of the bike steel incisors in my ears, rushing. Lines, lights, walls, all falling past, and my hands clench the handlebars. Water leaks down my cheeks as I hold my breath. Longer, longer...

The dark at the end of the tunnel. Air. Signs. Welcome to New Jersey.

Breathe.

0o000o00o0o0o0o0oo0oo0

The freeway's come to an end in some stupid suburb. Hills of houses, all dark now, holding me down like deep water. The night's foggy, streetlights making pale cones of light down on sidewalks, and the noise of the bike's engine is a hatchet in the quilted silence.

I don't belong here. I need to find the road again, right turn instead of left.

The street I've followed comes to a deadend, and I take the narrow cul-de-sac at single digit speeds to avoid ending up as grille grease on some suburbanite's motorhome. The neighborhood stays silent as I backtrack, still as a held breath.

I recognize the onramp by the shield-shaped sign; no clue if it's the same way I came or a different road altogether. Doesn't matter. Anything to escape the critical mass of the rows upon rows of cookie-cutter houses.

Up the ramp; escape velocity in 3.2 seconds. I upshift and settle into a cruise, watching the needle on the tach dip back to the left side of the dial, and...

Eyes on the road. Concentrate, hold the line.

Rotational physics is the only thing that keeps me upright as I blink away spots. A nauseous fainting feeling settles into the top of my head, and I hunch down over the handlebars to lower the center of gravity. The spots aren't fading, and my hands and feet are starting to feel too far away. Green sign overhead, C Street in 1 mile. Have to get off the road before I end up part of it.

Overhead cranes to the right, four, five, ten stories tall, and I turn left. Warehouse district, melting into residential. Right turn. Backs of warehouses bordering the street, chain linked backyards, no luck. Right turn. Beside an alley, one block down, under a security light for an adjoining warehouse, salvation in a storm drain. There. I take care of the light with a bit of broken cinderblock and park the bike between an empty dumpster and a stack of pallets. The metal and leather peels off like old scabs; no sense in actually dunking the stuff in industrial runoff. Everything fits like puzzle pieces under the shell armor, which locks over the pillion bars with a faint snap. Without the key, it'd take explosives or a blowtorch to get to it now. Spare manhole cover tool strapped between the tank and the forks. Check.

Manhole covers haven't been this heavy since I was ten.

There's some sort of greasy puddle down the center of the alley, but not enough to be a problem. I hold the cast iron up a few inches so I can unhook the tool before I shove the cover aside. But the edge is slippery, and I forget the tool and slap my other hand under the cover to prevent it from dropping. The quiet of the alleyway magnifies the small sound the tool makes as it falls, echoing carelessly in the foggy dark.

Seriously. Heaviest manhole cover ever.

The curve of the circle grates against the pavement as I try to get enough of a grip on it to lever it over the rim, my fingers sliding desperately on the oily metal. But the cover succumbs to gravity, and my right index finger explodes like a roman candle as it gets caught between ninety pounds of cast iron and the grimy concrete. The noise in my head is almost loud enough to cover up the crisp kachik of a pump-action behind me.

Not a friendly sound.

"You don't look like Public Works."

My free left hand goes for my belt, but finds nothing. Sai are still in the shell armor, locked on the bike.

Idiot. Fucking brainless idiot.

I tug at my finger, but it's stuck. Footsteps in the alley behind me, and I brace my feet on the greasy pavement. One mammoth pull and my hand comes free, at the expense of my footing. I pitch backwards as my right foot slips to the side, and then overbalance forwards as my toes lose grip completely. I get a closeup look at the grid pattern on the manhole cover as the world vanishes in stars.

Just turtle luck, running true to form.

o0o0o00o0o0o0o0o0o000o0o

Notes: This fic is unfinished. I've got a handful of chapters done, but unfortunately it's likely to remain in this state. In general I hate to put up things in this condition, but it's been sitting on my hard drive for three and a bit years, and I think it's a relatively decent bit of writing, among other reasons. (Provided that 'decent' is a little-known synonym for 'utterly screwed-up angst-fest', that is.) Also, my horoscope today said I should share things. That's right, this is all astrology's fault.

If you have any objections to the tone, the topic, or the vocabulary, please remember that the back button is at your command. That being said, thank you for reading.


	2. Knee Deep

Air

a fic by lint. zzzz

Summary: A road trip, complete with Greek takeout and denial. Roughly 2007-movieverse.

Warnings: Swearing. OCs. Angst. First person present. More angst.

Notes: This story takes place one year after the events of the 2007 CGI movie. Also, any segment that starts with a time is a flashback to one 24-hour period. No offense meant to residents of the locales mentioned. See end for more specific notes.

Disclaimer: I own no copyrighted characters contained herein. (As if I'd _want_ responsibility for these guys. Shyeah, right.)

Length: 3790

0o000o000o0o0o000o00o0o0

2. Knee Deep

My shell's digging into my arm. Must've fallen asleep weird or something. I shift around, trying to pull it out from under me.

It's tied to my other arm.

What the...?

Oh.

Shit.

I tug against the cord, but all that succeeds in doing is cutting into my wrists. My right arm's pretty much numb from laying on it anyway.

The sound of a very large gun loading a round somewhere in front of me. "Looks like you're awake."

I freeze.

Try to place the voice, but can't. I've made way too many enemies to recognize them all.

Wrists tied together behind my shell. Ankles too, by the feel of it. Probably on a sofa, my feet are pressing against the ridged fabric of the backrest. Wherever I am, it's chilly, but there's a blanket over me; not bad. Guy with a gun pointed at me, that's bad. I try to figure out how my hands are tied; I'm decent with knots, preferably where I can see them. Not like I've got a choice at the moment.

Zip ties. Thick ones. Can't untie them, can't break them without leverage. Fuck.

I can hear the guy shifting around. Metal folding chair on a hard floor. Wearing shoes with rubber soles. Jeans? I can't hear anyone else in the room. Echoes are nice and loud; it'd be hard to hide.

Eyelids feel gummed together, but they peel open eventually. Guy knows I'm awake, anyway, and I might as well get a better look at the surroundings. I blink a few times in an attempt to get my tear ducts working; eyes are so dry they feel full of sand.

Fluorescent lights, buzzing. It's way too bright; makes me realize just how much my head hurts. And everything else. Feels like I got hit by a mack truck. The guy's some Asian dude, skinny, buzzed hair, jeans and sneakers and khaki canvas jacket with a logo on the breast pocket, shotgun laid across his knees. No idea who he is, who he's working for.

"So, do I call the police or animal control?" Bemused, trying to cover up fear.

Just wait till I get my hands free, man. You ain't calling anyone.

I trace the edges of the zip ties with my finger, trying to determine how they're connected. Cops'd have two, interlinked together. This doesn't feel like that; best I can tell it's just one, twisted several times between my hands. Amateur job. Best news I've had since I woke up.

The guy leans back in the chair and angles the gun so it's pointed more at me. He doesn't look all too happy about the whole thing. If the situation weren't so messed up, it would be funny.

Look at me, I'm almost laughing. Yeah, funny, all right.

I slowly rotate my wrists around each other, feeling the zip tie loosen with each revolution. The guy can see I'm doing something, but it's under the blanket and behind my shell, he can't tell what. But he tightens his grip on the gun and leans forward, all the same. "Look. Um. I don't want to have to use this thing."

Great. We're agreed there. I don't want him to use it either.

"Just stay calm, okay?"

Oh, I'm perfectly calm. Give me a minute and I'll show this guy just how calm I can be.

The zip tie's finally untwisted, and it's loose enough that I can slide my hands free. Too bad I can't do anything about my feet without being completely obvious. Whatever. I'll make do.

Guy with gun, four feet away. Me with blanket. Go time.

I roll off the sofa, take one giant hop towards the guy, and toss the blanket over his head. His hands automatically go for the blanket, and I grab the gun. And that's as far as my great master plan gets, because my knees collapse under me and I'm down on the floor.

But at least I've got the gun.

The guy claws the blanket from his head and falls sideways off the chair in the process. I lash out with my tied feet and kick the chair at him; anything's a weapon. In the few seconds he's trying to deal with that I manage to get to my knees and point the gun at him.

Or try to, anyway. My right arm's still mostly numb, but my shoulder most definitely isn't; it hasn't stopped hurting since I crashed in Tennessee. And a shotgun's a two-hand weapon. I flip it up in the air and grab it by the barrel. It'll be more useful as a club than as a gun, provided I don't end up shooting myself in the foot.

The guy's untangled himself from the chair and blanket and is crab-walking away from me. Looks scared enough to piss himself. I fold my toes under and lever myself upright, hop over to where he's wedged himself up against the arm of the sofa, and swing the gun around and up over my head. I stop it half an inch before it hits his forehead; he looks like enough of a wimp that he'll talk easy.

At least I think I stopped the gunstock short of his head. Might've dinged him a bit. I'm kinda dizzy. He lets out a girly shriek and tries to melt into the sofa.

"Aw, Jesus, don't hurt me!" Guy sounds like he's about to burst into tears. "What do you want? Anything, man, it's yours!"

What do I want? He's had me tied up and at gunpoint, and he wants to know what I want? Damn. The criminal element's definitely gone downhill. I swing the gun over my shoulder, but lose balance and flop back onto the sofa.

What do I want?

"Scissors." My voice is harsh, rusty, as if I haven't used it for a year.

The guy stares at me. "You talk?"

Moron. "You asked what I fucking wanted. Scissors. You were expecting semaphore?"

He just looks at me, jaw dropped. "Um. No." He sort of scuttles to his feet and over to a corner of the concrete room. Basement? Kitchenette; card table, folding chairs, microwave, sink, minifridge, hot plate. He's pulled a blue plastic basket from a cabinet and is rummaging through it frantically. "Scissors. Um. I don't think. Shit." He pulls a bread knife from the basket and approaches me carefully, like a lion tamer with a chair, the knife's handle out. "Best I've got. There aren't any scissors."

Whatever. It'll work. I take the knife and he pulls his hand back as if I'd cut him. He retreats back to the table as I set to work on the zip tie around my ankles, the gun across my lap. My right arm's gone completely to pins and needles, and if the knife weren't so horrifically dull, I'd consider sawing it off, it's tingling so bad. I can feel the guy's eyes on me as I hack through the zip tie.

Dull knives are the most fundamentally useless things in the universe. The thing's bent at a forty-five degree angle by the time I've cut the plastic away from my feet. The guy's still staring at me, tapping his fingers along the edge of the table. I glare at him. "What?"

His expression is halfway between abject terror and child-curious. "So, um. Are you like Cat-Man? Only, y'know, Turtle-Man?"

Am I what? I get up and go over to the sink, dropping the bent knife on the table in front of the guy on the way. "What's a cat man?"

He stares at the knife for a moment before answering. "Um. This guy, I guess he got this mystic calling that he was supposed to be a cat or something. So he went out and got tattooed in tiger stripes and had cosmetic surgery and implants so he'd look like a cat. Even changed his name, legally." He's watching me at the sink, now. "What are you doing?"

I've ejected the shells from the gun into the sink, plugged the drain, and turned on the water full blast. Looks like they were pretty small birdshot; odds are they'll never fire now. "What's it look like I'm doing?" The guy doesn't have an answer to that, apparently, and I turn down the water to wash the dried blood from my smashed finger. Caught like a kid with his hand in a fucking candy jar. The pins and needles are mostly gone, and now it's really starting to hurt.

It's not broken, I don't think, but the fingernail's definitely coming off. Stupid, stupid. Wonder if the guy's got any aspirin. I open the cabinet and take a look. There's the silverware basket, a couple battered pots and pans, paper plates. A few cans of soup and some Easy Mac. No aspirin. The freezer compartment of the minifridge has a half-sublimated tray of ice cubes, though, and I dump those into a paper towel. The guy scoots away hurriedly when I sit across from him at the table, propping the gun up against the wall next to me. "Don't run off just yet."

The guy stops mid-scoot, staring at me like a rabbit caught in the middle of the highway. "What do you want from me?" Sounds like his imagination's having a field day.

Priorities. I rest the paper towel of ice on my mangled finger, trying to ignore the impulse to just beat the guy silly. Leo'd be proud. Besides, I'm not feeling too up to snuff. Dizzy, shaky, hurt; drugged, almost. "What'd you do to me?"

His eyes widen as if I'd just insulted his sainted mother. "Nothing. I swear."

Nothing, whatever. "Right. 'Cause I tied myself up."

"Um." I've seen that panic before; too many purse-snatchers who think they're going to get away. "Well, yeah, I did that–"

"Didn't do too good a job at it, didja?" The guy whimpers, sounds like a teakettle ready to blow. I'm really not in the mood to twist info out of him right now. "Look, stop acting like I'm gonna eat you or something. I'm not. And if I wanted you dead, you'd be looking down from the afterlife and wondering what the hell happened. So give me some answers, already."

The guy just stares at me, jaw dropped. "What are you?"

"Not Turtle-Man. Get over it." It's starting to look like intimidation's the way to go. I pull the bread knife over to my side of the table, slowly dragging the bent blade along the particle board, leaving little fluffs of wood composite in its wake. "Answers, now."

He's watching the knife. "Well. Um. You sort of hit your head in the alley, and I brought you down here."

"Where's here?"

"My warehouse, it's got this basement. Used to be a bomb shelter; it was built in the fifties."

The logo on the guy's jacket. Elite Cold Storage. No wonder it's so chilly in here. The blanket's still on the floor, and the guy nearly jumps out of his chair when I get up to grab it. I take a quick look around the place before going back to the table; my body's not liking being upright too much at the moment. The basement's basically a big concrete room, shadowed stairway leading up on the opposite wall, one door leading to a dark bathroom. Kitchenette, sofa, old TV, a couple cardboard storage boxes. "You live here?"

"For a few months, before I found an apartment. Seven...no, eight years ago. Sometimes I stay here when there's a big shipment coming in at night, or if I end up covering back in the warehouse."

Don't care about that. "Where's this, what city?"

"South of Carson, down by the port." He's giving me a strange look.

I remember seeing cranes, vaguely. Port means ocean, usually, or a big lake. "What port?" Last place I absolutely recognized was Las Vegas, and that's nowhere near the water.

"Port of Los Angeles." His strange look is now telling me I'm absolutely nuts. "Y'know, I think you hit your head pretty hard, and you've been out for most of the day–"

I don't need whatever sympathy he thinks he's giving me. "I'm not from around here."

"Yeah. Um." He's looking down at his hands now. "You don't sound like it." And then he looks back up at me, and I'm really not liking his expression. The manic grin, as if he's just pieced together both the Kennedy assassination conspiracy and what Elvis's been doing all these years. "You're an alien, aren't you? All those UFO stories, there's just way too much evidence, too many similarities to dismiss it all out of hand, and, y'know, they all talk about little green men–"

"I'm from New York." Dear lord, anything to make him shut up.

He does. For a few seconds. "So... You on vacation?"

"No." I rest my head in my hand, and try to rub the sticky, sandy feeling from my eyes.

"Business trip?"

Do I look like a businessman? "No."

There's a long pause, and I look up to see him leaning towards the table, elbows on knees, a contemplative look on his face. Of course, when he sees me watching him, he leans back. Defensive. "What brings you to the City of Angels?"

"Dunno." It's not quite a lie. I don't want to think about that. Dishonorable.

"Oh, come on. There's beaches, museums, tourism–"

I slam my hand down on the table; it's mostly gravity, not muscle, but it's still loud, and the table shudders as if it were about to collapse. "I'm asking the questions, asshole." He nearly falls off the chair again, and makes a little high-pitched sound. Questions. Right. I've got a ton. Just need to remember what they are. Head hurts. I pull the blanket tighter around my shoulders and scratch at my eyes some more, and when I look up, he's watching me. Scared, curious. Confused.

Me too. Damn.

Only one question I can think of. "Got any aspirin?" I didn't find any in the cabinet, but maybe, just maybe, he's got some stashed away somewhere.

He's just as stunned as me. I watch him, he watches me; he breaks first. "Maybe, in the bathroom." He gets up slowly, not taking his eyes off me for a moment, and backs into the dark hole of the bathroom. I doubt he's going to try anything, but I trust him just about as far as I could run juggling teacups.

Ten feet. Blame bored Mikey, nine years ago.

I lift the ice and take a closer look at my finger. The nail's cracked down near the base and half torn away; probably did that when I pulled it out from under the manhole cover. It's not as swollen as I thought it would be, but black and blue down all the way to the knuckle. The pain's settled into a steady sick throb, at least, but the relative warmth of the surrounding air is searing. I can't decide if that hurts worse, or my head; everything else is a distant third. At least my head didn't bleed everywhere.

I don't think it did, anyway. My fingers find a new lump directly above my right eyeridge, overshadowing the one on the side of my head from where I hit the pavement on the bike. No wonder the guy thought I was an alien, my skull's all lumpy. At least there's no blood there now, if there ever was; he probably didn't want me bleeding on his sofa too much.

Suddenly there's a bottle of Excedrin and a turquoise plastic tumbler of water on the table in front of me. "Want me to get the childproof cap?"

Didn't even hear him get back. Must be more out of it than I thought; untie me and my defenses instantly drop. Some ninja I am. I glare at the guy across the table and snag the bottle.

Line up the arrows.

No.

Push down and turn.

Doesn't work.

Squeeze and shake.

Fuck.

A real ninja can ignore the pain. Mind over matter. That's absolute bullshit. I roll the bottle back across the table to the guy. "You have twice the number of working fingers that I do." A true ninja is also the master of his environment and yadda yadda. It's not admitting defeat. Right.

Damn humans and their extra fingers. He's got the cap off, no problem. I display my mauled finger for him; could be I'm also showing him the bird at the same time. Matter of opinion. It looks like he's taken the second perspective, though, from his frown as he pokes the bottle towards me. "Try not to choke yourself, 'cause I don't think the Heimlich'd work on you."

Thanks for the empathy, pal. I shake out four pills, then on second thought, put one back. Four leaves me loopy under the best of circumstances, which is definitely not now. I check the logo on the caplets closely before I toss them back and follow up with a gulp of water. My throat's so dry I could be swallowing rocks, and the water is so odd-feeling, so welcome, that I hack and gag and nearly spit it up in spite of myself.

I'm sure the guy's laughing at me.

And then a thought hits me, sudden and heavy as an avalanche. I've had a Coke to drink in three days. That's it. No fucking wonder I feel like roadkill. I focus on the water, pure crystal artesian goodness, heaven in blue plastic, and try to drink it slowly. Slowly. It's not going to help much if I just end up puking it up. Dehydration's not high on the list of emergency situations Donnie's drilled all of us on; it's mostly overshadowed by sprains and concussions and broken bones and severe blood loss. Battle injuries. This is something I've done to myself, through sheer stubborn inattentiveness. Don't I feel stupid, now? I'd rather have the trauma, any day.

A minute's slow, right? I poke the glass back across the table. "More."

The guy goes over to the sink and refills the tumbler, sets it back on the table in front of me. Sits down. The crease of his eyes is wary, maybe worried, and the way he's crossed his arms is classic defensive. Don't know why; he's only stuck in a basement with a giant pissed-off anthropomorphic reptile. It's his own fault, really. He could have left me up there in the alley, unconscious, and gone about his merry way.

And I would have gotten run over by a truck, or picked up by the next well-meaning citizen to come along, and probably would have ended up in an even worse situation. Police, scientists, secret government agencies. Zoos. I'm only buried in shit up to my knees right now, not my neck, which is as lucky as I ever get.

I pick up the glass and take a sip. I limit myself to that; my stomach's already cramping and gurgling around the previous cupful. Glass back on the table. Finger stinging on ice. The guy, watching me. Questions. Right. "What's your name?"

He opens his mouth, shuts it again, considers for a moment. "Allan. Takigawa. Most people call me Taki." I can't help but laugh at that; a sort of coughed chuckle, despite myself. His defenses go up even more, automatic. "What's so funny?"

"'S usually a girl's name, in Japan." Or at least in popular videogames. The look on his face says that he knew it, but probably wasn't expecting anyone else to. "It fits you."

Oh, now he's glaring at me, and don't I feel threatened. "You got a name?"

"Yeah." But I'm not telling him. I'm not playing his game. He's not getting any more leverage than he already has. "What were you doing in the alley?"

"I heard an engine stop, and this is not the type of neighborhood where people with good intentions just cruise around in the middle of the night. So I went to check it out."

Just him? Even with a gun, it's one of the stupidest things I've heard. Sounds like something Casey would do. Bonehead. "Call the police, next time. You'll probably live longer."

He hears a threat I hadn't meant to put in the words. "What are you going to do to me?" I don't say anything, just go for the water again, and leave the tension lie. His imagination probably scares him more than I do. Maybe. It's a long minute that I'm just watching him, seeing fear and indignation and helplessness fleet across his face like fast-motion clouds, and when he speaks again, his voice is measured, flat. "I'm sure you're good friends with the police. Upright citizen and all. Could be I've already called them, and they're just waiting outside." Not much I can say to that; I just shrug it off. If it's true, there's nothing I can do about it but roll with the punches. But the look on his face, and the fact that I'm still here, tells me it's a bluff. "Why were you in the alley? Trying to get in the sewers?"

The table's looming closer and closer in my field of view. Really not feeling so great. "Looking for a time-share. Penthouses were all taken, this time of year." Let him chew on that. It's the truth, anyway. I want some more water, my mouth's dry, but my good hand's feeling shaky enough that I don't want to risk it. I force myself to sit up straight, making the blanket slide down my shell. Bad idea. The room's colder than ever. I reach over to pick the blanket up from the floor, but the minute pattern of the concrete floor spins and darkens, and my hand closes on air. Right in front of my face, and my hand-eye coordination's shot enough that I can't find it. I rest my forehead on the table, letting it hold me vaguely upright, because my muscles are losing the battle. Any second now, I think I'm going to puke.

I can hear the other chair scrape across the floor, and then the blanket moves from the floor, draping across my shoulders once again. Shoes move out of my line of sight. "You okay?"

No. I'm not okay. I swallow the extra saliva that's flooded my mouth. Not going to throw up. "Peachy." Deep breaths. In. Out. Concentrate on the rhythm. In. Relax. Out. Just like meditation. Mind over matter. In.

The chair's gone. My knees hit the floor. Sneakers, squeaking on the concrete. Can't focus–

Out.

Damn.

0o0o0o000o0o0oo0o0o0o0o0

Notes: Our Intrepid Adventurer needs to stop hitting his head. Also, the 'Taki' referred to by our Intrepid Adventurer is a female character in the game Soulcalibur, which he probably only knows because of his younger brother, and only mentioned because he wanted to piss Taki off. (Interestingly enough, it's a relatively common Greek male nickname.)

And yes, Virginia, there is a Cat-Man. Not making it up. He owns himself.

If you have any objections to the tone, the topic, or the vocabulary, please remember that the back button is at your command. That being said, thank you for reading, and virtual trahana to all who've stuck with me this far!


	3. Bouillabaisse

Air

a fic by lint. zzzz

Summary: A road trip, complete with Greek takeout and denial. Roughly 2007-movieverse.

Warnings: Swearing. OCs. Angst. First person present. More angst.

Notes: This story takes place one year after the events of the 2007 CGI movie. Please beware of tense changes; there's a bit from Taki's POV, and that's written in standard third person past. See end for more specific notes.

Disclaimer: I own no copyrighted characters contained herein. (As if I'd _want_ responsibility for these guys. Shyeah, right.)

Length: 3568

0o0o000000oooo0o0o0o0o0o0o0

3. Bouillabaisse

Fish, fish and more fish.

Allan Takigawa looked over the next week's shipping manifests for the fourth time that morning, and had just as much success in actually interpreting them as for the previous three. Shark steaks, easy to read. Salmon, mahi mahi fillets. Shrimp, of both cocktail and jumbo varieties. A cryogenic aquarium, more than anything else, and that was no big deal.

Where to put the fish, he thought, might have been the problem at hand, if it were any other day. But his eyes refused to focus on the warehouse layout schematic, and the half-dozen frozen seafood shipments weren't the right sizes to fit easily among the gourmet beef patties and desserts from all walks of confectionery that were currently occupying the vast majority of the freezer section.

Taki knew he was good at making things fit, just like puzzle pieces. And everything would fit; the numbers said so.

Later. This afternoon. It'd make sense then, he told himself. Fifteen minutes of planning, and the thousandth stern warning to Raul and Mario not to race the forklifts. Not only was it laughing in the face of OSHA guidelines, but the Toyota was due for a new battery, and the subzero temperatures really didn't help matters much.

The real reason behind his inability to concentrate, Taki knew, had absolutely nothing to do with work. It was, for lack of a better name, Mr. Yeah. The giant talking turtle who was currently asleep in the basement.

Hopefully asleep, anyway. Taki wasn't quite sure what would happen when he woke up again. He–at least Taki was guessing Mr. Yeah was male, since his voice was pitched too low for a girl, and even if he did know how to determine gender in turtles, he didn't think this particular one would look kindly on the inspection–looked like a stubby green linebacker, and Taki had stopped pretending he was using his gym membership over a year ago. That was what the gun had been for, and the advantage had lasted all of thirty seconds. Even sick and disoriented, Taki was sure Mr. Yeah could and would run him down like a locomotive to get out of the basement. All he could do now was damage control; try and make the train a small commuter special and not an hundred-ton freight line.

It really put frozen fish in perspective.

o0o0o0o00o0o00oo0o0o0o0o00o

Head hurts.

Not a migraine. Might be a concussion; I've had enough of those in training and life in general that it wouldn't surprise me. Especially back when Mikey was still learning how to control his 'chuks; he eventually hit targets through sheer enthusiasm if nothing else. Must be pretty bad if they don't trust me not to fall out of the hammock. I always get weird dreams the first few nights I sleep in a normal bed.

It's too quiet. I pry my eyelids open.

Shit.

Not a dream.

I can barely make out the outline of the basement in the light from the open bathroom door. Warehouse guy dragged me down here from the alley. Whatshisname; something girly, Japanese, all I can remember. Yakuza? Warehouse could be a front for some sort of smuggling op.

He had a gun. I kicked his ass. I remember that much.

I sit up slowly, holding my head. Feels like it's going to fall off. The corduroy texture of the sofa's arm has embedded itself in my cheek, and I feel something funny on my right index finger when I try to rub circulation back into the grooves. I squint at it in the dim light; it's been wrapped twice its size in gauze and tape, probably half a dozen layers too many.

Dropped a manhole cover on it. Right. Idiot.

Feet on the floor. Cold, concrete. The room's spinning, even though I can barely see it. I stay still for a moment, trying to get a grip on the surroundings. Heartbeat and breathing's rushing in my ears, it's hard to tell if the guy's anywhere in the room. If he is, he's being pretty damn quiet. I pull the blanket up around my shoulders and rest my head on my one good hand. I've got to get out of here somehow, even if I don't feel like I could fight my way out of a cardboard box right now.

I'm in Los Angeles. The fact of just how far away I am comes over me very suddenly, like hitting bottom after a long fall. The sick feeling in the pit of my belly has absolutely nothing to do with physical illness. I ran. One time I might actually stand up and be responsible, do something honorable, and I drop it like a hot potato. Disrespectful. Guess I deserve all this.

If I do get out of here, where will I go? I'm already at the other side of the continent. End of the road.

My foot hits something beside the sofa, and there's a clatter in the darkness. I glare down at the...milk crate? Overturned, makeshift side table, and there's a bottle on it. Thirsty. I grab the bottle and hold it out towards the bathroom light to inspect it.

Gatorade, some pink flavor, unopened. I crack the lid off and take a long swig. Mouth tastes awful, like I...

Puked on the floor. Fuck. Dehydrated. Don't drink it too fast.

I swish the mouthful around my teeth, trying to wash away the mossy post-vomit sweaters from my molars. The liquid feels so good it almost hurts. I take another small sip and put the lid back on the bottle, leaning back against the sofa.

This doesn't make sense.

The guy abducts me, ties me up, has me at gunpoint. I get the upper hand, then pass out. And now he's left me alone, untied, and it looks like he's even tried to take care of me. Gatorade. Clumsy bandage on my finger.

Seriously. What the hell.

There's something else on the milk crate. I nudge the box into the meager light to get a better look. Pre-packed column of saltines. Zipper bag of melted ice, sweaty with condensation. Open bottle of Excedrin, now on its side.

Dear lord. Yakuza meets Martha Stewart. Not sure which would be worse. The only thing missing's a seasonal table decoration.

I've got to get out of here, the quicker the better.

The stairwell opposite the kitchenette. Only way out, far as I can tell. Didn't the guy say this used to be a bomb shelter? Probably can't get around through the ductwork; it'd be way too complicated to minimize contamination from fallout. Biggest bomb shelter I've ever seen, though, and we've all stumbled across a few in the sewers back home. This one's got to be close to the size of the dojo.

The last time I was in the dojo, I...

Not thinking about that. Air. Have to get out of here.

I choke down another sip of Gatorade and curl the ends of the fuzzy blanket in my left hand, pulling it around my shell like a cape. It's too cold for human comfort in here, not to mention reptile. Maybe the guy's planning to chill me into hibernation? He's got a lot longer to go than he probably realizes; I've lived through enough New York winters to know where my limits lie.

The room spins as I lever myself to my feet. If I make it to the stairs without falling over, I'll be good. One foot in front of the other; if I can balance on poles doing kata, I can do this. Thirteen steps, a rope across deep water.

Damn fifties stairwell, doesn't have a rail. I feel my way up the wall one stair at a time, trying to keep my injured finger from touching. After four steps, I'm leaning up against the side of the stairwell, with my hand leading the way. The seventh step is a narrow landing, and I ram my fingers smack into a concrete wall finding out that the stairs take a ninety-degree turn. I fall to my knees as pain bursts in my wounded finger, and swear and swear and swear.

Should have brought the Gatorade. Mouth's dry already.

I'm halfway up the stairs, though; might as well go the rest of the way. I somehow manage to get to my feet again, and slowly make my way up the remaining ten steps. The light from the bathroom is blocked by the corner, and I'm completely relying on the wall and my toes leading the way to keep balance; the dizziness is even worse in full dark.

There's no light coming from around the doorframe. Makes sense; if it was designed as a bomb shelter, it'd have a good seal on the door. I transfer the blanket to my right hand and feel around the doorway for the handle and the edges. The handle's a wheel on the left side of the door, about ten inches across from what I can tell; reminds me of a submarine hatch. The mechanism is stiff and I can barely manage to make the wheel turn a quarter revolution before I hear the faint clank of chains from outside. The guy's locked me in. I run my good shoulder into the door with as much force as I can muster; it doesn't even budge, and the lack of echo from the impact tells me it's sturdier than I could break down, anyway. I pound on it a few more times, just for good measure, until the vertigo makes me stop. Guess I'm stuck in here until the guy comes back.

I make my way carefully back down the stairs; ten steps, turn to the right, seven steps to the floor. The moment I make it back to the sofa, I collapse, knees hitting the concrete, face buried in the worn corduroy of the cushions. More Gatorade. The last time I felt this horrifically lethargic was when I got shot full of animal tranquilizer during the whole Winters affair, a year ago.

A year past, almost to the day. I come back from a night watching the city, and Leo's there. We say hey, and it's the same rubberband tension that's always been between us, snapping back into place. A year and a half he's gone, and nothing's changed with him. Or me. There's nobody else I'd rather have covering my shell in a fight, or trying to outwit in a race across rooftops, but we can't so much as sit next to each other at the kitchen table without instigating a war. I'd like to say I wasn't hurt when he left, and I'd like to believe I was unsurprised when he stopped writing, but I'd just be lying, and I've never been too good at that. Me and Leo, folks; we're brothers and best friends and enemies and utter strangers, all at the same time.

What would Leo do, if he were here?

Wouldn't get caught, for one. He wouldn't even be here. He'd be back at home, and...

Fuck that.

I put my shell back against the sofa and snag the Gatorade again. Leo's not here. I'm here, and this entire screwed-up situation is my fault, and I'm the one who has to get out of it. I need a plan.

Planning's not my strong point, never has been. It just doesn't seem worthwhile to me, not when you're up against people like the Shredder, and the plan goes all on its ear in two seconds flat. It's like pretending you're fighting in a world of rules and laws when there really aren't any. I don't go in for things like that, except for times like now, when I really don't have a choice. Backed into a corner. Stupid.

I think step one of the plan has to be avoiding trying to fight the guy. Yeah, he looks like he wouldn't be any sort of obstacle, the only physical advantage he's got is height, but now he knows I'll fight back. Unless he's a complete idiot, he wouldn't have left me untied if he didn't have some sort of ace up his sleeve.

I look over to the table, where I vaguely remembered leaving the gun. Sorta hard to tell in the shadows, but it's not there anymore. So he's got it back, and probably won't be afraid to use it this time.

I really don't want to get shot. I think I've got enough problems already.

So, gotta disarm or incapacitate the guy before he can use the gun. Let's see. He opens the door, comes down the stairs...

Stairs make a ninety-degree turn. Blind spot. There. And if he can't see where he's putting his foot down, that's even better. I put the top back on the Gatorade and make my wobbly way over to the kitchenette. Half a dozen soup cans in the cabinet. I lay the blanket on the floor and put the soup in it, along with the slimmest butter knife in the cutlery basket and a mismatched pair of saucepans. There's a cast iron skillet, too, but I think that one's staying with me. Later. I gather up the ends of the blanket and drag the clanking bundle across the room.

There's got to be a light switch around somewhere. I start patting the walls down near the stairwell; there's a pair of switches just to the left of the opening, one for the main part of the basement, and one for the stairs alone. My eyes slam shut in defense against the sudden brightness, and for the next minute or so, the only thing on my mind is blinking. When I can finally see again, I start dragging the cans of soup by twos up the stairs, randomly placing them on their sides on the tread of the last seven steps.

It shouldn't tire me out, but it does. I sit down on the last step and crack open the bottle of Gatorade for a long sip, and take the moment to examine the lighting system.

Looks like a retrofit; wiring's all run outside the walls, encased in PVC pipes. The lights themselves are bare fluorescent bulbs, warehouse chic. I put the bottle back on the blanket and fish out the butter knife. The switchplate's held on with slot-head screws, not Phillips, which makes my job that much easier. I'm not Donnie, but even I know that if you pull out the wires, the lights'll go off for good. The dark is a ninja's best friend.

The blade of the butter knife is just thin enough to work as a screwdriver. I let the plate and screws fall to the floor; it's not like I'll need them back. The switches are held in the box by more screws, which quickly join the rest on the ground. I grab both switches in one hand and pull as hard as I can manage, and after about five inches of slack, they both part ways with the wires. There's no pyrotechnics, no dramatic noises; the lights just go out. I drop the disconnected light switches and head back over to the sofa.

It seems darker in here now than it had before, with just the bathroom light. My toes connect with the milk crate before I remember it's there, and the rest of the Excedrin falls to the floor, the small bottle rolling under the sofa with a rattle.

Damn. I could've used that. Should've picked it up before I turned out the lights.

The saltines and ice would be nice, though, and I leave them on the floor by the sofa, in the pool of light from the bathroom. I take the milk crate over to the darkened stairwell, and put it directly in front of the last stair, upside down. The saucepans go on top of that, balanced on the corners. If the guy makes it past the soup cans in the dark, he'll send the pans flying. Element of surprise, and a warning for me if he makes it that far.

I take the blanket and Gatorade back to the sofa. Need to rest for a bit. Part one of the plan is done, and hopefully the guy'll just knock himself out before I'll need to do anything else, because I can't really think of anything for part two other than bashing him with the cast iron skillet. I hold the bottle up to the light; about half gone. Good. Maybe I won't make myself sick this time.

There doesn't seem to be anywhere good to hide in the main room without moving the furniture around, so I pull the blanket back around myself and go to check out the bathroom. It's barely utilitarian; toilet with no lid, sink hanging on the wall, cubicle shower with a time-yellowed accordion curtain and rust ring around the drain. Empty towel hooks hanging over the back of the door. The mirrored medicine cabinet stuck on the wall above the sink doesn't have anything immediately helpful, just things like travel-size toothpaste and nail clippers and a half-rusted disposable razor. I think the skillet's going to be my best bet.

Wait. Toothpaste. That could be useful, if I've got to get up close and personal with the guy. Chemical warfare. I take the small tube and tuck it in a belt loop.

Doesn't seem to be anywhere to hide in the bathroom either, and I don't want him to be able to block me in. Main room then. I go back over to the sofa and sit down for a bit, considering. The guy knows where the light switches are, and he'll automatically reach for those, if he makes it past the soup. If I'm on that side of the room, I'll be able to smash his hand into the open switch box, and then use the toothpaste, if I need to. It's his basement, in his warehouse, but he's left me to it, and it's my turf now. Gotta defend the turf.

I take the saltines, blanket, Gatorade, and ice over to the wall past the destroyed light switches. Wires are hanging out of the box, splayed like spider legs. Spiders. I wonder if–

No. Gotta keep focused. No bugs in the basement. None. I need my skillet. And the bathroom light off. I wish I knew when he was down here before, and what time it is now, so maybe I'd know how long I'd have to sit here, in the dark. With the–

There are. No. Bugs. Fucking big baby. Skillet. Lights. Go.

First time we were at the farmhouse, Mikey found this old cast iron pan hidden back in a cupboard, and every time we go back there, he suddenly remembers it and goes off into a half-hour long rhapsodic tirade about the cable cooking network and how much better it is to cook with this thing. I don't know cookpans from daytime TV, and to me the thing just looks old and and way too gunked up to actually make anything edible in, but hey, it's Mikey. He'll take whatever's in the dumpster out back of a grocery store, go all Emeril on it, and it's the best thing you've ever put in your mouth.

Me and Mike have entirely different definitions for the word Bam. The skillet works for both.

I don't think the pan at the farmhouse was this heavy. Whatever. Means it's sturdy enough to smack the guy around a bit, if I need to.

With the bathroom light out, the basement is completely dark. I find my way back to the wall by the stairs, miraculously not running into any of the furniture, even more miraculously not tripping over my own feet. Now all that's left to do is wait.

I hate waiting. Almost as much as I hate bugs and Leo's pompous-ass lectures and...

Oh god. Leo. What he's gotta be thinking right now. What he's doing, because he's the Good Son I never was.

I feel like there's a hole the size of my fist, right through me. Can't breathe. For a moment, it turns me deaf, and then I realize that's the skillet hitting the concrete, close enough I can feel the air it moves; the clang echoing around the room is louder than a jet at takeoff. The floor's cold under my feet as my legs decide they're not working anymore.

I am not. Thinking. About. This.

Falling in the dark means you can't see when you're going to hit the ground. Knees, then face-first into the wall, and I see time-lapse ultraviolet flowers bloom in front of my eyes. I feel like I'm floating as gravity pulls me further down, my bad shoulder hitting an instant before my head, the same spot as the manhole cover.

0o0oo0o0o00oo0o0o0o0o0oo

Drowning. Cold, water in my eyes, numb. A short, substantial thud, and the quality of the dark changes. Footsteps, careful.

"Um. Hey. You down there somewhere?"

A skid, a series of resounding fleshy thumps, air accordions past. Jangle, clatter of hollow metal on concrete.

I lift my head, open my eyes, sending water rolling down my face. The warehouse guy, sprawled at the foot of the stairs in the sliver-moon light creeping past the corner, soaking red stain on his chest.

0o00o00o0o0o0o000o0o0oo0o0o

Notes: It was at this point my editor said that if I didn't stop hitting our Intrepid Adventurer in the head, she was going to stop reading. So I promise, no more head injury. Anyway, this is probably my least favorite chapter out of what I've done on this story, but I've let it stand the way it was originally written because (a) I think it expands upon the characters, and (b) I'm too lazy to change it.

If you have any objections to the tone, the topic, or the vocabulary, please remember that the back button is at your command. That being said, thank you for reading, and virtual moussaka to all who've stuck with me this far


	4. Sequoia

Air

a fic by lint. zzzz

Summary: A road trip, complete with Greek takeout and denial. Roughly 2007-movieverse.

Warnings: Swearing. OCs. Angst. First person present. More angst.

Notes: This story takes place one year after the events of the 2007 CGI movie. Please beware of tense changes; there's a bit from Taki's POV, and that's written in standard third person past. Also, any segment that starts with a time is a flashback to one 24-hour period. See end for more specific notes.

Disclaimer: I own no copyrighted characters contained herein. (As if I'd _want_ responsibility for these guys. Shyeah, right.)

Length: 4197

0000o0o0oooo0o0o0o00

4. Sequoia

A flash of sparks, snap and sizzle, clack above my head.

"Jeezus! What the–?"

00o0000o0oo0ooo0o0o0o0

6:23 p.m. I lower myself into seiza, and wait to be acknowledged. I will wait. I will not lose my cool, or blow this off. I get it now. The lesson is learned. Time to grow up.

The incense has burned down, its scent cool and somehow stale.

I wait.

0oo0000ooo0o00o0o000o0

"Well, well, well." Taki drained the last of his coffee, and tossed the paper cup halfheartedly at the trashcan across the room. It missed, ricocheting off the sink before bouncing and rolling off under the table. 'Well' was pretty much the last word he'd use for the situation. 'Surreal' was a good one. So was 'snafu.' "Shit," he said, with a grimace, as he reached over the arm of the sofa for the books that were on the milk crate. Tylenol with codeine was a good friend, even a year past the expiration date. The children's book on reptiles he had gotten at the library–the only one he could find that wasn't in pure veterinary language–had a mere two pages on turtles, and not one word dealt with giant talking turtles that tried to kill him by throwing him down the stairs. Or electrocuting him.

He grabbed the book on minor home repair, courtesy of the second trip to the library in two days, and opened it up to the first marked page, a diagram of a simple electrical circuit. It didn't look hard, he thought, but knowing his luck, he'd probably end up switching the wires someplace and blowing a main breaker, or setting something on fire. Sighing, he flipped to the second bookmark, which illustrated the wiring of light switches. When he'd taken the electronics he'd found on the floor into the hardware store and asked how to put them back on, the clerk had first laughed at him, then told him to get new switches that couldn't be pulled out of the wall, and then to find an electrician to install them.

However, doing that would involve explaining how the switches had ended up being disconnected in the first place, and actually letting someone down into the basement. With the homicidal giant turtle. Maybe he'd make the turtle fix it, when he woke up.

Taki shot that notion down as quickly as it had come up. The turtle had used the open wires to try and kill him in the first place. He wasn't going to get a second attempt at it, at least not so easily. Or was that a third attempt? Taki really didn't know, and didn't want to think about it too long. He'd been pretty sure the frying pan he'd found was intended to bludgeon him to a bloody pulp, had Mr. Yeah actually been awake and not passed out facedown in a puddle of melted ice. He wondered why the turtle hadn't shot him right off the bat, and actually said he didn't want Taki dead, and then proceeded to booby-trap the basement. It didn't make sense.

Really, there wasn't much about any of this that did make sense, Taki reminded himself. On the cosmic list of rational actions, bringing the turtle down from the alley probably ranked up there with stapling his thumb to the wall when he was seven. It made sense at the time, but at no point thereafter. Taki wondered, not for the first time in four days, just how he was going to worm his way out of this mistake.

He closed the home repair book and dropped it back on the milk crate. Later. The lamp he'd dragged down was light enough, and he'd successfully managed to cap all the exposed wires in the switchbox, even though the breakers were still off. When he'd had time to think on it later, he'd nearly soiled his pants at how close he'd come to actually being killed when he'd gone to turn the lights on; the only saving grace had been the fact that his hand had only come into contact with the insulation on the wires, and not the copper itself. At the time, the sparks and crackle of electricity when the wires had touched had been merely startling, and not truly scary. Taki attributed some of his ignorance at that moment to having just slid down the concrete stairs on his ass, and to suddenly finding himself wearing the soup he'd picked up at the grocery store deli. His jacket was still sitting at home, soaking in Spray-n-Wash. It was luck alone that he hadn't brought down the space heater first, and had to deal with that while falling down stairs, or else he might have ended up with a lot worse than a sore back and bruised elbows.

A glance at his watch showed it was five in the morning; he'd have to get up to the office in a couple hours. And make more coffee. He hadn't gotten much sleep, since the couch wasn't that comfortable even with the painkillers, and the fact that every time he closed his eyes, he imagined Mr. Yeah was awake and plotting revenge. To be honest, though, the turtle hadn't shown any signs of actually waking up since he had set up the little surprise for Taki in the basement, and that had been two days ago. There had been the one bit of...sleepwalking, Taki guessed it was, or a hallucination, considering the massive bruise on the turtle's head, but nothing truly resembling consciousness. Despite the fact that Taki enjoyed not having to watch every shadow for a trap, he was starting to get worried.

If anything, the hallucination–if that's what it was–was even scarier than the fact that the turtle wouldn't wake up, Taki thought. It was just so completely opposite of the personality that Taki had come to know and fear that it might have been an entirely different person. About an hour after he'd come down to the basement the night before, the turtle had suddenly sat up on the orange plastic pool lounge Taki had scrounged up when he realized there was no way his back was going to allow him to lift Mr. Yeah onto the couch again; the turtle had scooted about five feet away, and knelt, very formally, with his hands on his knees. And then he'd started talking, in some gibberish or foreign language Taki couldn't recognize, so low it was barely audible. The tears started five minutes later; and fifteen minutes after that, the turtle had been curled up in a fetal ball and was quietly sobbing into the concrete floor, repeating one phrase over and over, in a pleading, broken whisper. It stopped as suddenly as it had started, and Taki was left to drag the now-unresponsive turtle back onto the makeshift bed.

The teeth-grinding had begun about four o'clock the morning after, like nails on a chalkboard. It was worse than the snoring, which had been loud and annoying, but not eerie. The turtle was completely still except for his clenched jaw muscles, and the constant spastic strike-slip of molars. It got to the point where Taki was sure the turtle was going to hurt himself, and he had dug a popsicle stick from the cutlery basket and stuck it between the turtle's teeth, as much to protect the turtle as his own sanity. When Taki had come back to check on him during his lunch break the next day, he'd found that Mr. Yeah had managed to bite through the popsicle stick, and that the grinding was back, worse than ever. Taki had broken a small branch the diameter of his finger from a tree in the parking lot as a substitute for the stick, and that had held so far. It didn't look very comfortable, but at this point, Taki really didn't think the turtle was aware of much of anything.

Taki ran a hand over the stubble of his hair, sighing, "What am I going to do with you, buddy?" he asked. He knew he wouldn't get an answer, not from the turtle, at least, but there really wasn't anyone else to ask. He'd even considered at one point putting a lost-and-found up on Craigslist, trying to find Mr. Yeah's... Owners? Keepers? Family? Who the hell did a giant talking turtle associate with? But then he thought that advertising the fact that giant talking turtles existed might draw all the wrong sorts of attention, and he decided that he'd ask the turtle about it first. When he woke up again.

If he woke up again.

The turtle wasn't looking too good. Taki's veterinary skills consisted entirely of not killing the class hamster in kindergarten, but he knew that the sunken, dark circles around Mr. Yeah's eyes weren't a good sign. And the matte, grayish cast to his dark green skin–it was skin, not scales, despite what the children's book said–was even worse. The creature just looked sick. "What am I going to do?" he repeated, staring at the turtle in the harsh shadowed light of the lamp. He had the vague idea that if something didn't change, and soon, he'd be stuck dragging a giant talking turtle carcass out of his basement, and...then what? His apartment complex didn't have enough open space to bury a body without attracting notice, and there was no way he was going to go dig up holes in some random park.

What would the Sopranos do?

Dump him in the bay, tied to concrete blocks? Always a classic. But there were too many security checkpoints to get through, and Taki didn't have a boat. The desert. Put him under a tarp in the back of the truck, and go out to the Mojave, and...checkpoints again. The border patrol would want to see what was under the tarp. No go, Taki decided. Besides, the Mafia probably had all sorts of connections to deal with things like that; in the movies, trying to get rid of a body without drawing attention always led to disaster.

The turtle couldn't die, that's all there was to it. Taki thought for a moment on calling up his ex-girlfriend–she was the only person he could think of off the top of his head who might have some sort of practical advice–but it was the middle of the night, and she hadn't actually answered any of his calls in the past year. It really didn't help his case that the majority of the times he'd tried to talk to her had been drunk dials; in the three years since they'd broken up, Taki could remember exactly two civil conversations they'd had, and even those had been centered around how wonderful her new boyfriend was, how responsible and how morally outstanding. "Hear that, pal? Things're rough all over. You're going to drag your own sorry self out of here, 'cause I just don't want to deal with it."

Taki went over to the kitchenette and poured a glass of water from the tap, then brought it back over to the pool lounge. He knelt down beside Mr. Yeah, careful of his aching back, and pulled out the stick; he winced at the deep bite marks scoring the bark, all the way down to the wood. "Now, you're going to drink something whether you want to or not," he said, and tilted the turtle's head up so he could pour a thin trickle of water into the creature's mouth. The turtle coughed and sputtered, sending rivulets of water down the sides of his odd, broad face. "Yeah, you would have to make a mess, wouldn't you?" Taki told him, and gave Mr. Yeah another small sip of water before heading back to the kitchen for the roll of paper towels. He turned to go back, but an idea caught him, and he pulled a jar and spoon from the cupboard before returning to the lounge.

"Hey, you get this all down, and it's snacktime, okay?" Taki said, dribbling another tablespoon of water between the turtle's teeth. Five minutes and three paper towels later, the cup of water was gone, and Taki unscrewed the lid of the jar. He looked over at the turtle and saw that his eyes were cracked open slightly, squinting up at the ceiling. "Hey, guess all I gotta do to wake you up is toss water in your face. Great. I didn't get the chance to ask what your favorite food was, but the book said fruits and veggies were good for you." He stuck the spoon down into the jar of applesauce and stirred it up a bit. "Open the hangar, asshole, here comes the airplane..."

0o0o0o0o00o0o00o00oo00o

Floating. Warm. Bright light, in my eyes. Water, trickling down my neck, tickling, puddled in the hollow of my collarbone.

Light! Must–

Connection, crash of glass as I hide from the light. A fight, distant; my hand is pulled away.

Obscene alien ripping noise, loud, sibilant. Pulled away.

Light. Needles under eyelids.

Must! Get away!

Sibilance.

Floating–

0o0o0o00o0o0o00o00o0o0o

6:29 p.m. I wait.

The incessant noise of water rushing through pipes, rattle of air moving in conduits, subway trains clattering above, thousands of people with lives tied together through circumstance and schedule. The city breathes. I breathe. A thousand different rhythms, intersecting, overlapping, overwhelming, and I am locked in their midst. I will be calm as a hurricane's eye, strong as heartwood.

I wait.

0o0o0000o0o00o0o0o0o0o0

I don't make plans. This is how my plans turn out.

I'm gagged and duct-taped to an inflatable plastic pool lounge, an electric blanket tucked up to my shoulders, the familiar ticking of a space heater on overdrive somewhere behind my head; too many winters in the sewers not to know that sound. The light from a stand lamp was what finally made me wake up, and now I'm staring directly into a lightbulb. If I strain my eyes all the way over to the right, I can make out the form of the sofa; the warehouse guy's sleeping face down, drooling and snoring into an armrest. He really doesn't look like a gangster, but looks can be deceiving.

I didn't get out of the basement. Didn't even stop him, looks like. And he's got me tied up again, or close enough. First thing I tried when I woke up was to just rip up the tape. Feel like I'm eighty; barely made the lounge squeak against the floor. Duct tape one, me zip.

It's been an uncountable length of time now I've been trying to avoid looking directly into the light, probably a whole five minutes, and the guy's still lost to the world on the couch. And just to make everything even more embarrassing, my bladder's suddenly decided it'd like some attention, please. I work on getting one hand free, at least, one strip of tape at a time, even if I can't just yank it loose. My wrist makes a hollow honking sound against the plastic as I rotate my arm under the tape, pressing down to try and create some slack. Feels like I'm pulling the skin off my wrist as the tape comes free, a millimeter at a time.

Wrist guards are gone. I try to wiggle my legs and the slight slide of the blanket on my skin tells me that he took my kneepads, too. I glance over at the guy; he's still asleep. Won't be for long. Asshole took my gear.

A loud smacking sound as one end of the tape on my wrist pulls away from the plastic, and an echoing tik-tik-tik as I scrape the other end free. There's another bit of tape above my elbow–no elbow pads, either–but that one comes off easy. My arm is far too heavy as I pull it out from under the blanket and get to work on the gag.

It's a stick, some fucking bit of tree branch, taped to my face and in between my teeth. Nice to know he's gone and assaulted the landscaping just to shut me up.

Was I talking?

Doesn't matter; done is done. Besides, Mike's the one who talks in his sleep, and sometimes Donnie, not me. I snore, I know, but it can't be that bad. I try to work a fingernail under the crisscrossed strips of duct tape and wonder what I might have said, if I'm more like Mike or Don. Mike won't shut up, just like when he's awake, but it's all garbled mumblings; very rarely does he actually say something I'll understand. Don's the complete opposite; when he sleeptalks, he'll use complete, coherent sentences, without any context, like he can't get his brain to turn off, even in sleep. Makes me wonder what he dreams about, sometimes.

When Leo sleeps, he's completely silent, still as a rock. Maybe five hours, on a good night. We tag-team insomnia, me from the night, him from the morning.

Got the bottom corner loose. The tape peels up slowly, leaving sticky residue crap all over my cheek. I fold the piece of tape over on itself to keep it from adhering to me again, and start on the top edge.

The guy's still asleep; hasn't moved a muscle. Hope it's the middle of the night, just so he'll be absolutely miserable when I wake him up.

Top bit of tape's off. I pull the stick out of my mouth, and rip the tape off the other side. Stings just like a bandaid. I wad the ends of the tape onto the stick and bounce it a couple times in the palm of my hand to get the feel of the weight distribution before I drop it beside the pool lounge. It's not the most aerodynamic thing in the world, but I bet from this distance I could take out an eye or something. I try to turn my head to get a good look at how far away the guy is, but there's another strip of tape across my forehead. It's gotta go.

It's quick work ripping it off, but the guy snorts and lets an arm drop off the sofa as I'm peeling the tape off the plastic. I don't want him awake yet. I want him to wake up when I wake him up, not before. The tape on my other arm's next, then the crisscrossing straps across my plastron, and three pieces on each of my legs. Peeling the tape off quietly is numbingly slow, but the guy doesn't move again. But when I sit up to reach the tape around my knees, I go a little too quickly, and the pool lounge squeaks and shifts under me and unceremoniously dumps me over onto the concrete.

Damn. That woke him up.

The guy grunts into the armrest and runs a hand over his face. When he sees me, his eyes widen alarmingly and he scoots over to the far edge of the sofa. "Shit. What are you, like, Houdini or something?"

Duct tape ain't exactly handcuffs, man. I try to flop the lounge over to get to the stick, but just end up rolling onto my shell, the tape around my legs twisting where it's still attached to the plastic. Great. Just great. The most awkward position for a turtle to try and get out of, and I'm still taped to pool furniture, just to make it even worse. I hear the guy choke back a laugh.

Let's hear that again when I'm kicking your ass ten ways to Sunday.

The slide of socks across the concrete, and he's looking down at me. I reach out to snag his ankles, pull him down to my level, and he does a funny little leap back out of my reach. "Hey. Um. I can help you get that stuff off, if you want. If you promise not to, like, kick me in the face or anything." He's still trying not to laugh.

It's like he's read my mind. I imagine choking the smile off him; happy, sunshiny thoughts. But I'm probably not going to get a chance as long as I'm taped down. "Yeah. Whatever." My voice sounds like I've just gargled with gravel. Feels like it, too.

The guy kneels down cautiously, as far away from me as he can get and still reach. "Um, so. How are you feeling? Better? The book said you don't like the cold." He starts on the tape at my knees, peeling it up slowly, like he wants to take my skin off with it. "And I don't know what you eat, but apparently it's not applesauce–"

"Rip it off." No idea what the hell he's going on about, but the tape's driving me nuts.

The guy's hands flinch back. "Huh?"

"The tape, asshole. Rip it off, like a bandaid." Do I have to explain every little thing?

His hands go for the tape again, cautiously, but stop an inch away. "Want me to give you a countdown?"

No, I want a princess pony story. "Just get it off." I want off this stupid plastic thing, and I want the bathroom, and if he doesn't untape me in time, he's just going to have to deal with the consequences.

Two minutes, and it's all off, and I think I even have most of my skin left. I make it to my hands and knees, and then to my feet, somehow. The edges of my vision are starting to press inwards and get dark, and my legs feel like they're made of papier-mache, but when the guy reaches out to steady me, I smack his hand away. "Next time you touch me, you lose that hand."

That gets him off my shell. Still, he's following me with his eyes, the whole ten steps to the bathroom, and damn, he's got Mikey's kicked-puppy expression. Was he expecting me to be nice? Duct tape and a gag; best way to make friends. "Fuck off. Gotta take a piss."

I slam the door before he can say anything. Doesn't matter; not like I'd listen anyway. Nature's calling my name, and loud.

Man.

Oh man.

That feels good.

I catch my reflection in the clouded mirror door of the medicine cabinet as I'm washing up. The bruises from all the different times I've managed to hit my head over the past few days have all merged together into something about the size of my hand, spanning my forehead and wrapping around to the right, across my temple, down over my eyeridge. My right eye's half swollen shut; probably gave myself a concussion somewhere along the line. Not like I'd notice a few more brain cells gone; at least that's what everyone else'd say.

Yeah, I just use my head to hit things with; it's not good for much else. I'm the dumb brother, with his brains in his fists. I rest my hands on the edge of the sink and study my rusted reflection.

I look like shit warmed over.

Maybe it's true; they say you can tell when you've gone nuts when you can't recognize yourself anymore.

The me in the mirror is smirking, snarling, eyes narrow, on the hunt. He's on the verge of attack, but I beat him to it. The image explodes under my knuckles; snap of trees in a hurricane, pressure groan, windchime tinkle.

I still stare back, fragmented, seamed, misaligned. A ragged square missing, one angry eye gone, one still glaring from a dozen different facets. I stare. I stare, it stares, a challenge.

Standoff.

Every instant, every breath, a line drawn, a definition. This is me; this is all else. Eyes, not mine, staring, crossing the line. A thousand different eyes, each a separate angle, all saccade and blink in unison. Accusing; blank. I am five, ten, fifteen; I am me and my brothers and my family and my enemies and strangers; each facet, each eye in spiderweb jigsaw, and all stand watch.

This you must learn on your own, my son. Until then, I can teach you no more.

I witness myself, lost, in silent myriad.

Air. I need–

The pieces of me are gone. I sweep them from the wall, to the sink, to the floor, a needled silver jumble; rotten diamonds. Air. Can't breathe; heartbeat's thrashing in my neck, pounding in my ears like taiko, reverberating through the walls. It's all collapsing around me, inwards, a house on stilts. The door.

Out.

Out.

Doorknob is slick, wet lightning in my hands, and the storm follows me, winds, water, thunder. Shelter. A wall, cold comfort; smooth rock, unforgiving under my fingers. Stone is like tree rings, silent manifesto of history, carved by winds and water and thunder of change. I cannot stand silent; rock the river will wear down, trees will uproot in a hurricane. History will be overwritten, to each eye its own codex, sealed, interred.

No more.

I will break the cycle. The stone will not be taken by the river; I will take it, and keep it safe. This is mine to protect, to hold within me, sequestered.

The eye is here. The water is rising.

000o00o0o0o0o00o0o0o0

Notes: Well, at least I didn't hit him on the head this time. It's just a tiny little mental breakdown. Really. Honestly, this isn't my favorite bit of writing, either, since Taki's got a bunch of third person past (which generally eludes me), and it ends in a big ol' hunk of SOC (which will probably elude everyone else). I thought it was important for the story, though, so here it stands.

Virtual baklava for all, since you deserve something pretty darn tasty for making it this far


	5. Cheiromant

Air

a fic by lint. zzzz

Summary: A road trip, complete with Greek takeout and denial. Roughly 2007-movieverse.

Warnings: Swearing. OCs. Angst. First person present. More angst.

Notes: This story takes place one year after the events of the 2007 CGI movie. Please beware of tense changes; there's a bit from Taki's POV, and that's written in standard third person past. Also, any segment that starts with a time is a flashback to one 24-hour period. See end for more specific notes.

Disclaimer: I own no copyrighted characters contained herein. (As if I'd _want_ responsibility for these guys. Shyeah, right.)

Length: 4947

0o0o0o000o0oo0o000oo0

5. Cheiromant

"Oh, you've got to be kidding me."

Taki watched Mr. Yeah collapse against the wall with one last sob, bloody fists unclenching. The wall above his head was streaked with gore for about five feet on either side, where he had tried to dig a hole through the concrete using nothing but his hands, mumbling and pleading in the same language he had used the previous night. One moment the turtle had been fine–well, relatively fine, anyway–insulting Taki before stomping off to the bathroom, and then there had been the crash of breaking glass from behind the closed door, and it was the other side of the turtle who had come out again, the frantic Hyde to his snide Jekyll, stumbling across the room blindly before trying to beat the wall into submission. Taki had looked in the bathroom and had seen the mirror from the medicine cabinet shattered, shards scattered across the floor and in the sink, and wondered what exactly he had gotten himself into.

Maybe the turtle was schizophrenic, he thought. It would be just his luck.

The turtle's breathing was starting to slow down to a more normal rhythm, and Taki took a careful step towards him, crouching down just beyond arm's reach. "Hey, buddy. You awake?" Taki asked. No response. Mr. Yeah just lay there, curled up against the base of the wall, apparently sleeping just as soundly as he had for the past two days. If he hadn't just seen it happen, Taki wouldn't have believed the last ten minutes; the only evidence was the broken mirror and the mess on the wall and the blood slowly dripping from the turtle's hands to the floor.

Taki knew his back still wasn't in any shape to drag Mr. Yeah back to the warm area of the basement, so he pulled the pool lounge over and somehow managed to roll the turtle on top of it; that had to be better for him than lying on the cold floor, Taki figured. But the only electrical outlets on that side of the room were on the same circuit as the doomed lights, and Taki had to settle for pulling the space heater and lamp out into the room as far as the cords would reach.

The first aid kit was up in the office; Taki had taken it back up three nights ago after bandaging the turtle's crushed fingernail. The warehouse was working on close to three hundred days without an accident, but knowing the way the world worked, someone would immediately get a papercut if bandaids weren't available. And then there'd be forms. Taki hated forms. And faxing, and dealing with workman's comp, and lawyers. Having a well-stocked first aid kit in plain sight was the best good-luck charm he had found over the years, although steel-toed boots were still the best defense against getting a pallet of frozen strawberries dropped on the foot.

Whatshisname, the Albanian kid. Two hundred eighty one days ago, and Taki was still wading through the paperwork.

Taki went over to the kitchenette and pulled half a dozen paper towels off the roll. He didn't know if the turtle was bleeding from a bunch of smaller cuts or a few big ones; there was just too much blood smeared around on his hands to tell where it was coming from. Taki knelt down beside the pool lounge and spread a couple paper towels on the floor to catch the big, fat red drops that were still steadily falling off Mr. Yeah's fingers. "Now, I'm going to touch your hands, and you aren't going to hit me or anything." Taki watched the turtle's face closely for any signs that he had heard. Nothing. "You know, I'm really sick of getting smacked around. I don't care if it's reflex or what. I'm just trying to help, and you... Oh, great."

There were at least half a dozen good-sized pieces of mirror embedded in the turtle's palm, and who knew how many smaller ones, all seeping blood. Taki dabbed the paper towel against the turtle's hand lightly, but Mr. Yeah flinched unconsciously and pulled his hand back out of Taki's grasp. "Okay, so that hurts. Got it. Um." Taki sighed and stood up, wincing and rubbing at his back. "So, I'm going to go up to the office and get the first aid kit. And you aren't going to move. I don't want any booby traps or whatever when I get back down here, okay? You're bleeding everywhere, and y'know, it's your own fault, nutcase." Taki was almost to the stairs when another thought crossed his mind. "And if you do want to move, go over and sit at the table, 'cause there's actually a light over there that works. And yeah, that's your fault too."

The first aid kit was exactly where it was supposed to be, in the access corridor between the front office and the warehouse proper. Taki grabbed it and started up a pot of coffee in the breakroom; it was an hour and a half before anyone else would get to work, but knowing how tired he was, he'd drink a couple cups by the time the rest of the crew arrived. The coffee was already cheerfully perking when he'd located the stash of paper goods in the janitorial closet beside the office, and Taki filled his usual mug–one cream, two sugars–before swiping an extra roll of paper towels and heading back down to the basement.

The stairs were suspiciously free of soup cans, and Mr. Yeah was just how Taki had left him, curled up on his side on the pool lounge, hands out in front of him and slowly dripping onto the near-soaked paper towel on the concrete floor. Taki crouched down and opened the first aid kit on the floor, laying out another square of paper towel to put supplies on. Tweezers, tube of generic Neosporin, sealed sterile wipes, gauze and tape, pair-packaged latex gloves. Taki went over to the kitchenette to wash his hands, and when he got back, the turtle still hadn't shown any signs of waking. He sat down on the cold concrete floor, scooting to one side to avoid casting a shadow in the light from the lamp halfway across the room, and pulled the gloves out of their sterile baggie. "I've really got to be crazy. Even if I did know what I was doing, you're probably just going to wake up and kill me anyway."

The turtle's left hand was palm-up already, and Taki tilted it slightly to get a better view. The two-finger-and-thumb arrangement was strange; from what he remembered of high school biology, most animals on the planet had five digits, or the vestigal remains, anyway, from the dew claw and paw on a dog to the skeletal structure of a bird's wing. But this was very clearly three digits, and it looked like that was the way it was supposed to be, not a deformation of any sort. Mr. Yeah only had two toes, Taki noted, which was even odder, since the number of fingers and toes was usually the same. "Okay, definitely not Turtle-Man." Taki scrubbed off the tweezers with an alcohol wipe and tentatively set to work, starting with a small rectangle of glass near the crease of the knuckle on the turtle's first finger. "Here goes nothing."

0o0o0000o0o0o0o0oo0o0o0

Confusion.

Jumble of images, sensations, as if poured out of a box onto the floor. Eyes, glances, scattered like a minefield. A small hand, fingerprints on glass. Light behind my eyelids, interrogative, slipping through the cracks like a dam about to burst. My chest is heavy as I breathe, like moving underwater; I feel shaky, achingly tired.

Pressure, at the base of the first finger on my left hand, like something's trying to pop my finger off. My hands hurt, starred with a stinging, unyielding sort of pain, almost like I've dipped them in boiling water.

The pressure eases momentarily, and then it's gone. A moment, one breath in and out. "Stop, dammit!"

The warehouse guy. What's he doing with my hand?

The pressure's back, savage, crushing. He's going to tear my finger off, and I try to wiggle my hand out of his grasp. I need that...

"Stop it." A verbal slap. But he's trying to rip my hand apart. "Stop moving, damn you!"

Yeah, okay, that's it. He's going down. The light is blinding, shoving my eyeballs through the back of my skull, and my eyelids feel like bricks grating against stone. I can't see him; he's in silhouette against the three bulbs of the stand lamp, crouching down over my hand, grasping it with both of his. I try to tug my hand free again, and he looks over at my face, does a double take when he sees I'm awake. "Yeah, what?" His voice is a growl, angry at something. "You gonna try and kill me again? Go ahead. See if I care. I should just leave you to bleed to death."

Bleed to... What?

I blink down at my hands; it's hard to see in the harsh angle of the light, but my hands look painted red. As I watch, a drop forms on the side of my right thumb, and falls to the floor to join a small puddle.

That's not bleeding to death. Not even close. I've lost more blood to lucky punks, and it didn't even slow me down. I try to tell the warehouse guy, but the words turn into a cough halfway out.

"Big talk, asshole." The pressure lightens slightly, and the warehouse guy sits back on his heels, looking at me. "Really. I should be scared, because you're probably going to jump me in my sleep now, but I'm not. I'm just pissed, because I've got a lot of fucking work to do today, which I can't do, because I'm stuck digging all this fucking glass out of your fucking hands, and you're probably just going to fucking kill me later, anyway. Fucking psychotic reptile."

Huh. I think I've made him mad. Natural talent.

And my hands really are full of glass. I tilt my right hand to look at it in the light; it glitters like a disco ball. I remember, vaguely, something with a mirror, but it's all blurry. Feels like it's underwater; I want to know what it is, but it hurts. My hands hurt, my head hurts. Brain hurts, like tangles in a fishing line.

Two eyes staring, mouth open in an O, toy car against the smudged window. Wonder if the kid caught anything. A still image, clear as a photograph; father and son, on the dock at the first creak of dawn, bait and poles and sandwiches in a cooler. In the boat, a small aluminum dinghy, the kid in an orange life vest, clutching his pole tight as the tip bends down. A splash, ripples in deep water.

No.

The pressure on my hand ceases. I look up; the warehouse guy's pulling off the gloves. "That one's stopped, for now. I've got to get up to the office for a couple minutes. If you can drag your crazy ass over to the table, go for it, so I can actually see what I'm doing. And if you pass out on the way...yeah, whatever. Just try not to bleed everywhere." And then he's gone, up the stairs, and the sound of the door opening and closing echoes like thunder.

Why is it that every time I wake up, I feel worse? I've got to stop hitting my head on every single fucking wall I come across.

Did I hit my head this time? Can't remember.

I take a look at the cut the warehouse guy had been pressing against. Doesn't look that bad, maybe a quarter inch across, but it feels like it's deep. I can see dozens of other places across my fingers, tiny red gashes smeared with drying blood, where he'd already pulled out the glass. There's still one big piece lodged in the palm of my hand, an angular half-moon the diameter of a quarter buried deep down near the heel of my thumb. Don't know about the rest, but that one's going to need stitches. Damn.

I think I've really fucked up this time.

It's not like the pool lounge is that comfortable, anyway. I manage to get to my knees beside it, avoiding the puddle of my own blood. Balance from the glassless tips of my left-hand fingers as I put weight on one foot, then the other, and stagger drunkenly over to the kitchenette. I kick out a chair from under the table and collapse into it, my shell clacking gracelessly against the metal backrest. Cold, but I could care less. I've somehow disturbed the fragment of mirror in my left hand, and blood is welling up around it, running across my wrist and retracing the creases of my palm; red lines, like letters of some lost language, or abstract brush paintings of war. I can't stop the drops falling to the tabletop, slowly soaking into the bare particle board; there's too much glass still in my other hand for me to try and put pressure on it, and anything I do is likely to just jar it worse.

The blood falling to the table makes a rhythm, like a slow metronome. Time stretches as I watch the stain beneath my hands grow, first nickel-sized, then lemon, then baseball, trying to keep my eyes from sliding shut again. I can barely feel the pain any more, like screaming from behind a series of locked doors.

Drip.

Concentrate. Can't stop the bleeding, measuring time in ounces and teaspoons. All the things I thought I had figured out are just like this, patterns etched in time, trauma of reactions. Instinct. Gravity.

Drip.

Drip.

These things, I don't control; they control me.

The reverberating clang of the door, footsteps on the stairs, slow, careful. Drip. The warehouse guy comes over to the table, turns on the kitchenette light, and sets a steaming cup of coffee down on the edge of the sink. He watches me warily for a moment, standing back from the table, arms crossed. Drip.

"God, you're a mess." His voice is low, contemptuous, and I don't blame him. I am a mess. "Thought I told you not to bleed everywhere."

I shrug. Couldn't help it, really.

He sighs, then goes to gather up the first aid kit from the floor. As much as I'd like to tell him to go to hell and let me do this, I can't; I don't have a good hand to work with. Halfway to passing out again, anyway. The warehouse guy flattens a plastic shopping bag and lays it under my hands, then puts several layers of paper towels on top of it. A shallow Tupperware goes down on the table, and he pours half an inch of what smells like rubbing alcohol in it before tossing in the tweezers. "Just my luck if you get an infection from this and die."

Would be just my luck, too. I try to tell him, but I can't get my voice to work, my throat's too dry, and all that comes out is a muffled choking noise. I eye his mug on the edge of the sink; coffee wouldn't be ideal, but anything wet would do. He follows my line of sight and picks up the cup protectively. "Oh no. That's mine. I've gotten about six hours of sleep in the past two days, and it's all your fault." But he seems to understand what I'm getting at, and digs out a paper-wrapped straw from the cutlery basket in the cabinet and a bottle of antifreeze-colored Gatorade from the fridge. Straw in the bottle, and he sets it down on the table between my forearms. "That's yours. And if you behave yourself, there's some grapes and crackers. Breakfast of champions." He sounds just as thrilled as I feel.

I go for the Gatorade as he's washing his hands, and he's got one glove on by the time I feel I can actually make comprehensible noises. "What time is it?" Well, partially understandable, at least. It's barely more than a whisper.

He finishes pulling the second glove on and looks at his watch. "About a quarter till eight. Friday morning, if that means anything to you."

Seven and a half days. I wonder if they're out looking for me, if they ever did, if they've stopped already. Leo's probably blaming himself for everything, just like always, and I wish I had the chance to tell him it wasn't his fault, it was mine, every inch of it. Like he'd listen if I told him; he doesn't realize how much of the burden he takes on is inevitable, things he has no say over. He'd say the same thing back to me, too, and it'd be true, except for the fact that so much of what I can't control is me.

"Yo. Earth to turtle dude."

I glance up; the warehouse guy's holding the tweezers above the big chunk of glass in my left hand. "You gotta hold still. This one's gonna hurt."

Is he seriously going to pull that one out? "Don't." I curl my fingers away from him, trying to shield the fragment as much as I can.

He sighs, exasperated, and tosses the tweezers back in the rubbing alcohol. "Look, it's gotta come out, and better sooner than later."

"You got needle and thread?" I hold his gaze as he looks up; he doesn't have a clue what I'm talking about. I cough to clear my throat and explain. He's the one who didn't want me bleeding all over the place, anyway. "Look, something that size, if it's even half as deep as it feels, you pull out the glass and it's going to go everywhere. And it ain't gonna stop bleeding until it's held shut." Damn. Since when did talking make me this exhausted?

He goes for the tweezers again as I take another sip of Gatorade. "There's tape in the kit. That'll work."

I think I've been sewn up enough times in my life to know when something's going to need stitches. "Tape won't stick to the blood."

"Look, I don't know how to do that. Everything I know about medicine comes from watching primetime TV." He's whining now; makes me want to choke the tone out of his voice. If there's a job to do, you either do it, or you don't. I can almost hear Mikey misquoting Yoda last time it was his turn to clean the bathroom, right before I shoved him in there with a scrub brush and a box of borax and chained the doorknob to a chunk of rebar.

I think he just wants to get me to talk because he knows it hurts. "Look, just get the little stuff out. You get me needle and thread and I'll deal with the big ones." Nothing I haven't done before; being the Nightwatcher taught me how to do that much, if nothing else. It's not like I wanted to end up with my hands full of glass, anyway; I can't even really remember how it happened.

He pulls my right hand over, a bit more roughly than I expected, and I can't hold back the wince. "Yeah, and how're you gonna do that? Use your teeth?" He uses the tweezers to peel back the bandage on my index finger, and half a dozen tiny shards fall to the table. But the gauze gets caught on a long sliver that's bullseyed the whorl of my fingerprint, and I bite back a sarcastic answer as the glass fragment twists under my skin. "You know, this was a whole lot easier when you were asleep."

That makes two of us. I watch him try to pull off the tape without moving the glass any more than he already has; there's blood trickling off the side of my finger, and the gauze is quickly soaking through. He's biting his lip, holding his breath, eyes focused on what the tweezers are doing. It's not like a little blood's gonna hurt me; it's more important to get the glass out without–

Damn. That.

The gauze slides free as the shard breaks off, leaving a tiny little corner peeking out from under my skin, the tip of an iceberg. The warehouse guy's eyes widen at the amount of blood falling to the table, and he sits back, just watching. "Um. We gotta stop that; that's–"

"Just get the rest of it out."

"But. That's gotta hurt, and it's bleeding–"

"Gonna hurt worse later. Get it out." My voice cracks on the last word, and I take a drink to wet my throat.

He looks at my face, then at my finger, and then back up again. "Whatever." His hands are shaking as he carefully goes after the fragment. The tweezers can't get a grip on the exposed bit, though, and he mutters a curse under his breath as he pokes around under the edges of the cut. "You okay?" He glances up at me. "Not gonna pass out?"

He's digging around under my skin with tweezers soaked in rubbing alcohol; how's he think it feels? "Fine." Hurts like hell, but I've had worse. Lots worse. And I think I would have passed out by now if I was going to.

The fragment wiggles around a bit, but doesn't come out. "This is sick. I'd rather be doing the taxes." He angles the tweezers a bit more sharply, and tries again. "That's what I told my secretary I was doing, going through all the tax records down here. All those boxes over there." He tilts his head, indicating the cardboard boxes piled up against the wall. "Seriously, I gotta work on that. They're due in a couple weeks. But instead, I've been down here babysitting you, and getting smacked around every other... Got it."

The glass slides free, and I immediately turn my hand over and mash my fingertip into the table to put pressure on the cut before he can grab it; that's the finger with the nail I smashed, and it's still sensitive enough that I know I'm going to scream if he starts squeezing at it. "I hit you?" Don't remember that.

He drops the tweezers back in the Tupperware. "Yeah. You were, like, half awake, and I was trying to feed you something, 'cause I thought you might be hungry. And... Yeah. You hit hard, man."

Really don't remember that. Don't think I meant to do it. "Sorry."

He sighs, nods. "Yeah, well... You think I taped you down just for the hell of it?" He pushes up his right shirtsleeve using his wrist; there's a deep purple bruise halfway between his elbow and shoulder. "Remind me not to get you really pissed off at me."

I lift my finger to look at the cut. Blood wells up immediately, and I push it back down. I was really pissed off at him, maybe a little less now. Not enough to hit him, anyway. He taps his fingers together through the gloves, trying not to stare, but the curiosity wins eventually. "So, what are you, anyway?"

Nope. Don't trust you that much yet. The fewer people who know a secret, the safer that secret is. "What d'you think?"

"Dunno. Giant talking turtle."

"You got it."

He shakes his head. "That's crazy."

"Been called worse." The bleeding's slowed a bit, but not enough.

The interrogation's not over, either. "So, do you eat, like, turtle food, or people food, or what?"

If he was trying to feed me aquarium flakes, then no wonder I hit him. "Normal people food. Whatever I can get." You can only be so picky when you're living out of dumpsters and whatever takeout you can find the spare change for; pizza's pretty much the only thing that fits through the storm drain grates.

"Huh. Okay." Seems he's satisfied with that answer, but it doesn't stop the line of questioning. "Was that your bike out in the alley?"

Was? I look up. "What'd you do to it?"

He chuckles a bit under his breath. "What, like it's your kid or something? Calm down." If I find out he's done anything to it, anything at all, he's going to find out just how hard I can hit. "Figured it was yours; New York plates and all. The trashmen said it was blocking access to the dumpster, and I had to move it. It's in the shed at the top of the stairs."

I'm still going to have to check it out later, just to make sure. Probably needs a good looking over, anyway, after riding it all the way across the country. I lift my finger; the gouge doesn't do more than ooze a bit, and I lay my hand back on the table. The warehouse guy fishes the tweezers out of the rubbing alcohol, shakes off the excess, and goes after a trio of chunks buried near the crease of my knuckle. He gets a good grip on one, wiggles it out gently. "So." His attention's mostly focused on the glass, but he spares a glance up at me. "What's your name?"

That shouldn't be a difficult question. And it isn't; it's just that... I dunno. All this metaphysical psychological crap, the kind they make such a big fuss over on daytime talk shows; yeah, that's me.

Get a fucking grip. It's just a name, right?

He can tell there's something up. "What, you can't remember? Didja hit your head that hard?" All I can do is shrug at him; I don't trust my voice. I can hear everyone I've ever known, my name in a dozen different tones, in anger, in fear, in friendship, in disappointment. It's not that I can't remember; it's that I remember too well.

I am such a fucking goddamn mess.

The warehouse guy dumps the tweezers in the rubbing alcohol again and sits back, watching me intently. "Seriously. What is your mental trauma? The giant turtle thing I can deal with; yeah, it's weird as all hell, but unless you start...I don't know, like, laying eggs in the corner or something...like, whatever. That's fine. I can deal with that. But all this psychotic episode bullshit? Fuck that, man. Fuck. That. The last thing I want to deal with is some catatonic suicidal asshole who's gonna totally burn me just for giving a shit. Y'know what I'm saying? I'm trying here. You just gotta throw me a bone. Anything."

He sounds like Mikey after a Dr. Phil marathon and a few too many Pop Tarts. I didn't think people actually talked that way, outside of TV scripts; don't know whether to laugh or be offended. But I know he's got a point, he deserves that much, at least. It's a name, not some top secret classified thing. But I can't. He's staring at me now, indignant, and I'm staring back.

He breaks first; snaps off a glove and takes a drink of coffee. "Whatever, man. You trust me enough to sew up that hole in your hand when I can barely put a button back on, but your name's too much to ask. You could even make it up; it's not like I'd know the difference." But I can't say anything, like there's some kind of block in my throat. He watches me over the edge of a the coffee mug for another minute; all I want to do is run, get back on the bike and go wherever the road goes, Mexico or Canada or wherever, but it's like I'm glued down. My legs won't move. "I've been calling you Mr. Yeah. In my head. I know, it's stupid. Unless you got anything better, that's it. I just gotta have something to call you."

It is stupid. But it's better than the alternative. "It's just..." The words are falling like rain; I can't stop them, and I'm betrayed by how weak they sound. "I've got some things I'm dealing with." Or not dealing with, really. Not thinking about that. It's an excuse; I know it, the warehouse guy knows it, and it changes absolutely nothing. Chickenshit.

"Yeah, I kinda noticed." He takes one last sip of coffee and sets it back on the sink; slips on another glove and picks up the tweezers. The room is silent except for the hum of the space heater as he digs two more shards of glass out of my index finger, six from my second finger, five from my thumb, and an even dozen scattered around my palm. He hesitates before going after a postage stamp-sized triangle bisecting my lifeline. "You think this one'll need stitches, too?"

I wiggle my fingers, feel that the glass is nearly down to the bone. I nod; by now, I don't think I can make a single understandable sound.

"I've been thinking." I look up. The warehouse guy's abandoned the tweezers; all that's left is the half-moon in my left hand and the triangle and an inch-and-a-half long monster sliver on the outside of my right. "Harry. After Houdini. 'Cause you always seem to weasel your way out of things."

I shrug. Definitely better than being called Mr.–

"Harry Yeah."

Scratch that. It's the stupidest name I've ever heard.

"Sounds like a B-grade porn star." The warehouse guy chuckles. "That'd be some weird-ass porn, with you in it."

00o000ooo0o0o0o00o0o00

Notes: Look, ma, no cliffhanger! Seriously, though, I'd like to apologize for Taki's pottymouth; the inspiration for that was listening to guys talk Real Guy Talk and then toning it down by roughly half. And no, before anyone asks, the use of the word 'porn' is not premontion. Just thought I should mention that.

Thank you for reading, and virtual tahinosoupa for everyone who has meandered this far down the page!


	6. Walls

Air

a fic by lint. zzzz

Summary: A road trip, complete with Greek takeout and denial. Roughly 2007-movieverse.

Warnings: Swearing. OCs. Angst. First person present. More angst.

Notes: This story takes place one year after the events of the 2007 CGI movie. See end for more specific notes.

Disclaimer: I own no copyrighted characters contained herein. (As if I'd _want_ responsibility for these guys. Shyeah, right.)

Length: 3641

0o000000o0ooo00o0o0o

6. Walls

Donnie's an absolute genius.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. My brother Don, the uber-geek, deserves some sort of Nobel Prize or something in the subject of internal combustion wizardry, because he's seriously just that awesome.

Me and Case found all the parts for this bike–well, most of what's on there now, anyway–put 'em together, and sort of made it run. Went around the block once before the engine cut out. But Don? He tells us to sit back, watch and learn, and before I know it, the thing's purring like the world's meanest kitten. I'm almost afraid to tinker with it at all, anything besides basic maintenance, because it's the closest thing to perfect. Casey's got Merryweather's bike now, and that's got its own mojo–I mean, if a classic '70s Harley doesn't shout badass, I don't know what does–but he and I both agree that streetwise, it ain't got nothing on this bike. It looks sorta like some cobbled-together clunker, and yeah, that's what it started out as, but it rides like it should be on the pro touring circut or something.

And I'm the idiot who had to go dump it in the middle of Buttfuck, Tennessee. Go me.

I'm pretty sure it's still mechanically okay, since I think I would have noticed something in the two thousand or so miles since then, but the fairing's all cracked and scraped up, some pretty massive road rash all down the right side, and you can't just bang out the dents in fiberglass. If it's not too bad, you can sand out the damage, spread some epoxy and cloth on the spot, and then slap a coat of paint over it; any worse, and you just replace the whole thing, simple as that.

If I were back home, I'd be prowling the junkyards nights, 'cause this looks bad enough that replacement's the way to go. But I ain't home, I don't know where's good to look around here, the one human I know is about as helpful as a semi-moronic squirrel when it comes to anything automotive, and to top it all off, I have no clue what bike the fairing was originally from in the first place. If I wanted to be lazy, I'd just take the thing off and leave the bike naked, but with the amount of torque the engine's capable of laying down on the road, I want the aerodynamics–for the stability, not necessarily for speed.

Damn.

And it's not as if that's the biggest problem, either. The bike was up for a oil change when I left New York, and from what I can see in the level window, the stuff in there now is the consistency of roofing tar. The chain's covered in three thousand miles of road crud, and the tension's off enough that it's nearly carved hooks of the rear sprocket teeth, probably the front ones, too. I doubt it's from when I dropped the bike; it's bad enough that it means I was a lazy idiot back home and just didn't notice it happening. But at least it's not going to get any worse, since the battery's managed to discharge itself enough in the two weeks the bike's been sitting that the lamp won't even come on. The fact that I've got sixty-three cents to my name and only twenty-five miles worth of gas left in the tank is just cosmic justice, the cherry on the sundae.

I'm too absorbed in moping over the bike to hear footsteps outside the shed, and when the door opens I belatedly fling myself back into the basement stairwell, instinctually hiding. I hit the back of my head hard enough on the concrete wall that I blank out for a moment.

"What, do I need to get you a crash helmet or something? A week and a half since last time you knocked yourself out; that's gotta be a new record." I rub at the new lump on my head and blink away spots; the shed door's closed and Taki's standing by the bike, holding a bag of takeout, and I give him a one-fingered salute. "Nice to see you, too, Harry."

"Asshole." I get to my feet, leaning against the wall. Don't think I gave myself another concussion, but I'm still a bit dizzy. "Gimme some warning, next time. Knock or something."

"I don't have to knock. It's my basement." He goes past me, starts down the stairs. "The game over?"

"Yeah."

"Who won?"

"Wings, four to one." I follow him down the stairs; whatever's in the takeout bag has an insane amount of garlic, and the basement's going to smell of it for a week.

"So...what now? They're in the playoffs or something?"

I have never met anyone who knows so little about hockey. It's not like I've got the biggest circle of friends, but even April knows what the President's Cup is. Probably because of Casey, but that's beside the point. "Nah. That big shiny trophy before the game? They're happy with that; they're gonna leave the playoffs to the teams who maybe didn't do so good during the regular season." Taki looks back at me, confused, like he's not sure if I'm being sarcastic or not. "Yeah, they're in the playoffs. The trophy means they get home ice advantage for however long they're in, too."

"Whatever." He pulls the milk crate over to the sofa and flips the TV back on. "All I know is that the Ducks got the Stanley Cup last year, and they're just down the road. Kings haven't done so good lately." There's commentary on one channel, and commercials on the other; the bunny-ears antenna only gets two channels underground. "It's basketball playoffs, too, and if you say one word bad about the Lakers, I'm gonna have to kick your ass."

I shrug; basketball's okay, but it's never been my thing. I go over to the sink and get a glass of water, avoiding the maze of papers spread out around the card table. Taki's method of doing taxes involves a lot of moving piles of bills and receipts around and generally bitching about the government, and very little actual number-crunching. He levels a finger at me from across the room. "Don't touch anything. I just got it all organized. And get me a paper towel while you're over there." I grab the roll and drop it in his lap. The TV's playing a commercial for laundry detergent; a happy family frolics in the backyard while animated flowers dance around bedsheets flapping on the clothesline. No family with clothes that nice and a backyard that big hangs their laundry to dry. You see clotheslines in Harlem, not on Fifth Avenue. "I got chicken souvlaki. Want some? Keeps the vampires away."

It'll keep them away for days, smells like. "Not hungry. But thanks."

Taki's slumped back on the sofa, plastic fork in one hand and styrofoam box in the other. He glances up at me, raising an eyebrow. "You know, you can't live on just crackers."

Whatever. "I'm a reptile. And I ain't doing much of anything down here."

"Which means...?"

"Means I'm cold-blooded, and I got a different metabolism than all you mammals." If he wants to argue that with me, let him argue. It's just the facts of biology. And I'm just not hungry. "I'm going back up."

Taki mutters something under his breath as I climb the stairs, sounds like a swear; probably something about me. Don't care what he thinks, really; if he's angry at me, wants to be best buds, kicks me out on the street, doesn't matter. Doesn't change a thing.

I set the water down just inside the stairwell; there's not much room in the shed and nowhere good it won't get in the way. There's a row of small windows high up on the west wall, and it's early enough in the afternoon that the sun's just started to creep across the floor, illuminating aimless dust motes. Reminds me of summers growing up, when we'd all gather under the storm drain grates in the quiet residential areas, and spend all day basking, talking about whatever and listening to the city. Just breathing, alive, content with that little patch of sunlight. Hasn't been like that for a while.

I fish the bike key out from my belt and unlock the armor from the pillion seat; it smells completely rank, like I'd worn it for half a week straight and then left it to stew in the sun, which is exactly what happened. I toss it into the stairwell for lack of anywhere else to put it; the stink doesn't come close to overwhelming the aroma of garlic. The helmet I leave in the corner of the shed; I should replace it, since it's met the pavement, but even when you know where to look, it's hard to scrounge up good motorcycle helmets, especially ones that even come halfway close to fitting non-human heads. It took a good two weeks working nights to mod out Merryweather's armor to fit me, and the helmet was the hardest part. I sorta lied when I told Leo I got rid of all the Nightwatcher's stuff; some of the things that were really hard to fix up I just changed the look of, so that they didn't look like the Nightwatcher anymore. Got a completely new helmet, since it had a distinct profile, and Leo proved to me that the visibility was crap, anyway.

I kept the shell armor just the way it was, though. And the gloves. I spent two whole nights ripping out the finger seams and resewing them so they'd fit me. No fucking way he was going to make me toss those.

The toolkit's under the seat, just where it should be. I pull it out from its cubbyhole and unroll it on the floor, one big long canvas pocket sewn into compartments for all the different screwdrivers and wrenches and bits; it's more than you'd normally find in a bike toolkit, but some of the size tools for this bike are so obscure that I figured it was better to have them all in one place than have to find them again in the mess of the garage. Donnie swears it's organized, and if you ask, he can tell you exactly where something is, but I honestly can't make heads or tails out of it without a map. I think he likes it that way, sorta labels it as his domain.

I pull out the larger of two hex wrenches and a pair of pliers, and start taking off the fairing. I don't have anything else to do, and I'd have to take it off anyway in order to do any other work on the bike. It's delicate work, more time-consuming than it should be, trying to get it off without causing any more damage; there's a good hand-sized chunk at the bottom of the lower part that's only held on by the fiber part of the fiberglass, and it flaps down loosely when I unscrew it from the bike. I can feel the sunlight painting my shell as I work, a long bar of warmth, measuring time in inches crept upwards and screws collected in the lid of an old can of spray adhesive.

"You planning on going somewhere?"

Taki's leaning against the doorframe; I don't know how long he's been there. The right side of the lower fairing's loose, and I've just been scraping at random bits of scuzz on the front wheel because I'd have to move out of the narrow patch of light to get to the left side. The sun's climbed up to my shoulders, and it feels nicer than I'd ever admit. Luxurious, almost. The bruising on my right shoulder's all but gone, but it still hurts a bit. Sort of. Feels funny, more like, and the sun makes it almost better.

I slide the wrench back into its pocket, nudge the lid of screws under the bike, out of the way. "Ain't going nowhere." Couldn't, even if I wanted to. The sun's warm, and I don't want to move.

He sort of frowns and comes into the shed, folding up the toolkit and moving it out of the way so he can sit down. "I put the leftovers in the fridge, if you want some later." I don't have anything to say to that; I've done nothing the past week but sleep and sit on my tail and drink Gatorade and wait for the cuts in my hands to close over. I'm just not hungry.

The cracks and gouges on the fairing are almost obscene; I remember how it looked, eight months ago. I had argued against it at first, since I didn't want the look of it; too different from Merryweather's bike. But Donnie insisted, spewed out some equations and threw in a whole bunch of words like acceleration and wind resistance and streamlining, and when Don gets in engineer mode and wants to convince you of something, there's no stopping him. He and Leo were the ones who found the fairing in a junkyard in Jersey and dragged it home, and Casey got a half-gallon of auto paint on the cheap, leftover from a custom job, this awesome deep red-gold metallic color shift. Mike did the actual painting, even did some cool detail bits up near the headlamp, sort of geometric flames. All I did, throughout the whole process, was sit back and watch.

And then skidded the thing over a couple hundred yards of wet asphalt at sixty miles an hour. There's no way I'm going to be able to fix it, not the way it should be done. It's a lost cause.

"So, you wanna tell me what happened?"

The sun's cold on my neck suddenly, like the shock of jumping into seawater, and I can feel the muscles of my jaw tense up. In the sun, and the shadow of the bike, I'd almost forgotten. Dishonorable.

A laugh, off to my left. It's not funny. "Breathe, Harry. Or whatever your name is." I look over; Taki's pointing at the bike. "I meant that."

The bike. Right. I have to consciously unclench my teeth. "Learned something the hard way." Only way I seem to learn things.

"What was it?"

Damn you. I sit back against the west wall, out of the sun; it illuminates the near-broken piece of the fairing, hanging at an awkward angle. He's watching me, waiting for an answer. "Not to brake hard in the rain."

"Dude! You crashed it?" I glare at him; I don't like that word. Sounds too harsh. Don would call it a 'momentary lack of verticality,' I guess, if he was talking in geek-speak. "I thought you just got too close to a telephone pole or something. Was that, like, on the way here?"

I nod. Can't deny it happened, and I'm not going to lie outright.

"And you just walked away?"

Walked, staggered, same difference. Doesn't matter what you're wearing; it's still gonna hurt when you hit the deck, and even so, I think I came away real lucky, for once. "I got good armor." Taki reaches over to tap my shell, and I block his hand halfway there. "Bike armor, asshole. Most people are a lot happier when they look over and don't see a giant turtle in the next lane, y'know?"

"Yeah. Got it." There's a long silence; he's finally quiet, and I'm not really in the mood for talking. I pull out the hex wrench again and start unscrewing the left side of the fairing. I've got about half of them out, and I'm just about to tell Taki to fuck off because his watching me's getting on my nerves, when he pipes up again. "What're you gonna do with it?"

I drop a screw into the lid. "Dunno." The left side's undamaged, and it's coming off a lot easier.

"I got some stuff on the shelf there, if you wanna try and fix it."

One narrow ledge by the ceiling; it's got spray glue, drywall putty, insecticide, a jar of nails, and the remains of a gallon of interior latex semi-gloss, eggshell white. I wish it were that easy; glue everything back together and slap a coat of paint on it, good as new. But it's not; not with the bike, not with anything. Some things you just can't fix. I rest my head against the side of the bike; the sunlight's too bright suddenly and it's just making everything blurry. "Go do your fucking taxes, Taki."

A long minute. Can't breathe. "Yeah, okay, man. Whatever." The sound of the shed door opening and closing, footsteps walking away.

I am not thinking about this. Too late to fix anything.

I drop the wrench, go down the stairs, wade through the papers to the bathroom. Turn the shower on as hot as I can bear, and curl up on the floor of the stall, wishing that the heat and the water could somehow dissolve me, wash me down the drain, away into the ocean. But the water goes cold before I can breathe again; the only thing different about me is my fingers have gone all pruny. I turn off the water and just stand there in the stall, dripping, letting the cold from the warehouse above settle into my bones, slowly replacing the heat of the shower.

Air. Go through the motions. In. Out. Find a rhythm.

Find a towel.

I turn off the lights, because I don't want to look at the blank space on the medicine cabinet, the fogged-up fragments of mirror left in the corners. The air's lost any trace of residual warmth from the water before I'm convinced that the wall in my throat's gone, that I'm actually breathing. There's a line of light under the bathroom door, but the basement outside's silent, no sound of shuffling papers or television voices. I find the hook above the door and hang up the damp towel, and rest my hand on the doorknob. It'll be lights out first, then I'll curl up on the pool lounge; it's cold enough that I'll go to sleep easy enough. Maybe if I'm lucky I'll stay that way.

My hand's on the doorknob. I can't get it to move. Cold metal, smooth under the water-wrinkle lines of my fingers; immobile as a mountain.

Seventeen days. Four hundred four hours. Twenty four thousand, two hundred and forty minutes. A fold in time; stand still, rewind.

One million, four hundred fifty four thousand, four hundred seconds. Four hundred one. Four hundred two. Four hundred three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten. Eleven. Twelve. Thirteen. Fourteen. Fifteen.

The doorknob turns.

Taki's at the kitchen table, assiduously whiting out line after line on a half-completed tax form. He doesn't turn around. "Glad to see you've finally taken an interest in personal hygiene."

Can't breathe. Can't move. Can't do anything but stand there and be a fucking statue version of myself; choke if I try to talk, fall if I take a single step.

Taki turns around, sighing. "Shit. You are not starting this up again." He puts the lid back on the bottle of whiteout and crosses the room, takes me by the hand, drags me over to the sofa like I'm a fucking two-year old. And I hate this, hate it as deeply as anything I've ever felt, but I'm as powerless to do anything about it as I am to move the continents; it's like drowning. Taki turns on the heater full blast and drapes the fuzzy blanket over me roughly. "What'd you do, take an ice bath?"

Inside, I'm screaming at the walls, shouting and scratching and biting at anything that comes within my reach. But outside I can't so much as twitch a muscle; can't move my eyes, can't talk. Can't breathe.

"I am so fucking sick of this." Taki's standing back from me, arms crossed, looking for any kind of response. "Y'know, I didn't ask for this. I got my own thing going here; I run my business and I live my life, and lather, rinse, repeat. Yeah, so it's boring. But y'know what? I'm okay with that. I don't go looking for trouble. And I definitely don't go looking for giant fucking turtles with psychological martyr complexes or whatever to be my roommates."

Ain't like I went looking for it, either, pal; you picked me up and dragged me down here. Asshole.

"So y'know what? I got a deal for you." He stomps off to the table, picks something up, brings it back over. A pad of post-its and a pen; he waves it in front of my face before slamming it down on the sofa beside me. "You make a list of all the shit you need to fix that bike up there, and I'll get it. You fix it, and you're outta here. I don't care where you go, I don't care if you slam yourself into a barrier at a hundred miles an hour; it's all the same to me. Go join the fucking circus or something. I don't care. It's just...whatever. I can't deal with this right now."

And you think I can?

He goes back over to the table; the sound of a body slumping in the chair, elbows hitting particle board. A long minute, measured in heartbeats. The sound of papers being swept from the table, falling, hitting the floor. "Fuck this shit." Footsteps crossing the room, climbing the stairs; the heavy clang of the solid metal basement door hitting the jamb and the solid finality of the latch driving home in the wall.

o00000o0000ooo0ooooo0o0

Notes: Yes, I've incorporated the alternate ending of the 2007 CGI movie into my own personal canon. Also, I know the bike in the movie wasn't a vintage Harley (when they're panning up for Raph's intro shot, there's a radiator, front and center, and old-school Harleys were all air-cooled), but I wanted something from Merryweather's era that would still be cool today, and that's the first thing that sprung to mind. There's not enough detail in the prequel comics to confirm or deny it either, as far as I know. (Been a while since I've read them, though.)

And yes, this chapter contains the one and only appearance of Greek takeout in the part of the story I've got written. There are a bunch of scenes I'd planned in the next part of the story that take place at a Greek restaurant, though; hence the summary. Someday, if the character muses decide to talk to me again, you'll get to read them. I hope. It wasn't originally planned as an author's note gimmick!

Thank you for reading, and virtual chicken souvlaki (or seitan souvlaki, if you like) for all who've made it this far


	7. Electrolite

Air

a fic by lint. zzzz

Summary: A road trip, complete with Greek takeout and denial. Roughly 2007-movieverse.

Warnings: Swearing. OCs. Angst. First person present. More angst.

Notes: This story takes place one year after the events of the 2007 CGI movie. Beware research overkill. See end for more specific notes.

Disclaimer: I own no copyrighted characters contained herein. (As if I'd _want_ responsibility for these guys. Shyeah, right.)

Length: 4424

0o0000oooo0o0o0o0o0oo0o0

7. Electrolite

"Y'know, your handwriting's horrible." Taki sets a good-sized cardboard box in the corner of the shed; the printing on the side advertises some brand of ketchup I've never heard of. "I seriously should've left you the phone, because me and the guy in the shop could barely make out what you wrote half the time, and he knew what he was talking about."

He thinks my handwriting's bad in English, he should see it in Japanese; best thing you can say about it is that I've got the right stroke order. Leo and Don and Mike would be off playing when we were younger, watching TV or whatever, and I'd still be at the table, copying everything five times over. Didn't really make a difference; not like there's much call for good penmanship in the sewers, anyway. Best thing I learned was to write small and save paper, because I'd just end up doing it all over again.

"There's one more load in the truck." Taki's out the shed door, and as soon as it swings shut, I'm digging in the box. It's half Christmas and half hell; the knowledge that I can get the bike running again means that there's nothing really standing between me and going home. I still don't know what I'd say to everyone. There's nothing to say; hurts to think about it. Things are just how they are; call it fate, or idiocy, or whatever you want. Leo's going to tell me I'm irresponsible, and dishonorable, I know already, and Mike's just going to give me that sad, grown-up look that is so out of place on him, like Peter Pan worrying about the electric bill. I'm pretty sure Donnie's going to be the one to blow up at me, especially when he hears about the bike. He's usually the most mellow of all the four of us, but when he finally loses his temper, it's spectacular. Mount Vesuvius annihilating Pompeii, and you'd be lucky to dig out the corpses two millenia later.

The door opens again, and Taki comes in, struggling with another box, a gallon of distilled water, and a plastic shopping bag. "Take something, will you? This one's heavy." I grab the water and bag before he can drop them; the bag clanks as I set it on the floor. Under a thick layer of old socks and a couple laundry-pink t-shirts there's three cans of matte Rustoleum spray paint. "I got a whole pack of new socks, so there's the old ones for rags. And the guy at Wal-Mart said that stuff'd work, and it's a lot cheaper than getting it from a car painting place."

"It'll work." I hate to cover up the red, but it'll just look stupid to have the entire right side bare fiberglass; it's not like I could match the color of the fairing anyway. "You couldn't just get black?"

"What? Charcoal's black, isn't it?"

The color of the cap's the color of the paint, moron. "Dark gray." Not like I can complain; he's nice enough to have gone out and bought all this just to get me out of his basement. "Whatever. Did you get the fiberglass stuff?"

Taki nods, taps the bottom box with the toe of his sneaker. "Got a bunch. The guy at the shop said it'd probably be easier if you just brought it in, though; he knows a guy that's real good at fixing things like that. Or they could just order a new one."

It would be easier, and not only because I've never done fiberglass repair before. But I can't do that, and I can't explain to him why not. I shake my head. "Cheaper this way." That's not the real reason, just an excuse, and he probably knows it just as much as me. It's the same reason I won't just let him take the bike into a shop to fix it; it's my fuckup, and I've got to try and make it right, as best I can. Not that anything I do is going to be more than patchwork–too little, too late–but it's all I've got.

Taki snorts. "You're worried about cheaper? With all the tools and everything, this is close to a thousand bucks. I mean, distilled water. You can't just use what comes out of the tap? You need the dollar-a-gallon stuff?"

"It's for the battery." If just topping off the battery doesn't do the trick, I'm hoping I can jumpstart the bike from his truck and I'll be back home before it finally decides to go kaput, if that's what it's going to do. I didn't find out that jumping motorcycles from cars wasn't the same as jumping cars from cars until after I'd done it the wrong way and sorta melted the battery on Merryweather's bike; good thing I was wearing the armor at the time, and a complete miracle I didn't burn out the entire electrical system. Had to scavenge up a new battery after that, which is what I shoulda done in the first place when I figured out it was a goner from sitting in storage for who-knows how many years. Shouldn't hurt to do it the right way, though, not if I'm careful, and hopefully the battery's not to the point where it won't still hold a charge.

Of course, knowing Taki, he probably doesn't own jumper cables. Or even know what to do with them.

He sighs. "Whatever, man. Just don't burn down the building."

0oo0o000o00oo0o0ooo0o0o0o

If turtles sweated, I'd be doing it right now.

I can see in my mind's eye how everything fit together, all the old bits that were worn out and covered in dirt and bugs and who knows what else. I've got all the parts laid out on paper towels on the floor; shifter, clutch assembly, the cleaned sprocket cover, new chain and front sprocket and chain guide, all the bolts and gaskets and attachments. But they're all degunked and shiny and new, and I just can't fit them into the picture in my head.

Taki's watching me from the basement doorway, his eyes boring holes in my shell. "You know what you're doing, right?"

When Casey and I originally put this bike together, we used the entire engine and drivetrain from one bike, just fit it into the frame. Theoretically, I know how this all goes together, but in terms of actual experience, I'm not much more than a backyard mechanic. Donnie's the one who stripped it down to the block, played with the gear ratios and how they complemented the power band, exchanged the stock for the extraordinary. That's why I gave Taki the actual chain and sprockets to get replacements, because I didn't know what size anything was anymore, and now I'm not sure how it all fits together. "The parts I had you take in to the shop. You didn't keep them, did you?" This'd all be so much easier if I could look at those, remember just what it looked like.

"I got the exact same things, the best the guy said he had. Didn't think you'd need the old ones back."

"I don't." Mechanically, no.

Taki chuckles from behind my back. "Good. 'Cause the guy gave me a five percent discount if he could keep them. He said he was going to frame those gear thingies, and write 'Don't Let This Happen To You' next to them."

Yeah. Funny man. "Aren't those taxes due in six days?"

"Seven, counting today."

I've got a shop light hanging from the roof of the shed because the sunlight's gone; it's going on seven-thirty in the evening, and Taki's on his second beer. "I don't think today counts anymore."

He takes a swig, stretches out his legs down the stairs. "Sure it does. Post office stays open till midnight on the fifteenth. And I've got everything organized; it won't take long to just plug in the numbers."

I don't know the first thing about doing taxes, but it's got to be more complicated than that; I've seen him working at the practice form with whiteout about three times now. Not going to argue it with him, though. I fit the new sprocket and spacers in place, and hand-tighten the nut to hold it on. The chain guide's next, and I make sure I've got all the washers in place before I put the nuts on the bolts. If I'm right about how this is going together, I can go back with the socket wrench and tighten it all up. But for now, I just want to see the shape of the puzzle.

"Hey, you want a beer?"

I shake my head. Maybe when I've got this all put back together, but not now.

"Whatever. You've been working on that thing all day. Maybe it's time to take a break."

It won't take long to get the rear wheel and sprocket back on, once I figure out the front; the chain'll wait for tomorrow. "Gimme a few more minutes. Isn't there basketball on?"

"Not on the channels we get here." He drains the beer and sets the bottle on the second stair down. "You're just trying to get rid of me, aren't you? 'Cause you don't know what you're doing and you don't want me to watch."

Too damn smart for his own good. "I know what I'm doing." He's spent one night out of the basement since the thing with the mirror. I wonder if he actually does have an an apartment; I wish he'd stay there more often, since the sofa is a hell of a lot more comfortable than the pool lounge.

He watches me polish out an imaginary scuff on the clutch assembly for another five minutes or so before heading downstairs; I can't think with someone watching me. In the two and a half weeks I've been here, I don't think he's ever gone out with friends, or talked on the phone with someone, or mentioned people he knew outside of work. It's scary to think I've got more of a social life than this guy, and I'm a mutant turtle from the sewers.

I hear the television turn on from down in the basement, and I know I'm sleeping on the pool lounge again.

0o0o00ooo00o0o0o0000o0o0

The armor's been sitting outside behind the shed for five days to air out, loosely covered with a tarp so nobody would be wondering why it was there; still smells, though, but not nearly as bad. I didn't realize how bad the metal was scraped up, and this close to the ocean, the humid salt air has started to rust the bare steel in places. I'll have to go back and sand everything out, try and smooth out the gouges, rub it down with a good coat of oil.

That's one good thing about the metal armor; it did its job. Back when I was in New York, I had considered trying to make carbon fiber armor, since the steel was so damn heavy, but I'm pretty sure the fall I took would have torn it–and therefore me–to shreds. Carbon fiber's got great tensile strength for its weight, and I've read a few articles online that say you can mold it at home, but it just doesn't end up that thick.

After seeing how deep the road had bit into the metal, I want thick. I don't ever want to have to need the armor like that again, but damn, I'm glad I had it. I'd have been roadkill, on the front page of all the tabloids.

I don't think I got lucky; I think it was a miracle. I should have been paste. One tiny thing different, the speed, the angle of the fall, the texture of the pavement, and I wouldn't be fussing over all this right now.

Later. I can worry about the armor later. It took three whole days trying to get the fairing in even halfway-decent shape, and the first coat of paint's dry. If you look close, you can tell it's not the best repair job, but the matte finish makes it less noticeable. It'll work. All I want now is to lay some serious rubber down in the warehouse's tiny parking lot and find a nice stretch of road somewhere the cops don't know about. To just go; doesn't matter where, as long as it's away from the basement.

"Are you sure I don't turn the car on?"

This is the third time Taki's asked me, and I'm trying very hard not to lose my patience. "If you even think about it, I'll personally make sure that you're audited." I've had to completely take off the pillion seat to get to the battery; the electrolyte chambers are all full and now I'm trying to maneuver the oversize clips of the car jumper cables in the small space of the battery compartment.

The positive lead's on, with about a quarter inch of room to spare. It's a tighter fit than I'd like, but there's no hills around to even try and push-start the thing. "Okay, hook up the red one."

"Um." I look up; Taki's holding his end of the cables and staring down into the truck's engine compartment as if it were full of something unspeakably disgusting. "Where's it go, again?" I take the clips from him and find the battery; it's hard to see the markings for the terminals through the thick coat of road dirt. Positive first, then negative. Taki just stands there and watches, with a nervous smile that's closer to a grimace. "Yeah. Um. That's where they go. Right."

He's got to be kidding me. "You've never jumpstarted a car, and you're how old?"

A little laugh, like he's sure I'm just about to blow the truck to kingdom come. "Hey, man, that's what I pay triple-A for. I just pop the hood and they do everything."

I follow the negative lead back to the bike and hook it on a bare bit of the frame. All of us, my brothers and me, we learned to jump cars when we were fifteen, before we even knew how to drive. It was way back when we were at the farmhouse the first time; April's van had a cracked block and the truck in the barn had been sitting for probably twenty years and the battery would barely turn the engine over. Learned how to hotwire cars then, too, as long as they didn't have any fancy security systems. Casey's got a lot of hidden talents, but even he knows when it's best to leave things to Donnie.

"Should I start it now?" Taki's in the driver's seat of the truck, hand curled around the ignition.

I resist the urge to hit him. Looks like fourth time's the charm. I go over to the truck. "Taki, gimme the keys."

"But–"

"Give 'em to me." I reach past him and pull the keys from his fingers, then throw them across the parking lot; they fetch up against the side of the building, under a shrub.

"Hey, what was that for?"

I wouldn't have done it if you'd just listened to me, moron. "Don't start the car."

"But triple-A always starts their car, and then–"

He can't see the look I'm giving him through the helmet, and that's probably a good thing. "And triple-A's always jumping cars from cars. This's different."

Kill switch. Turn the key.

"I could be wrong...I mean, I don't know that much about cars, but a battery's a battery, right?"

Damn straight you don't know much about cars. Self-check's all good. Make sure it's in neutral; hold the clutch.

"I don't see what difference it makes–"

Ignition.

Yessssssss.

It's really a good thing I've got the helmet on, 'cause I know I've got this dopey smile that even Leo'd tease me for ages about. I didn't fuck it up; not completely, anyway.

Taki's out of the cab of the truck, he's looking between the bike and me disconnecting all the cables. "It actually worked." He sounds amazed, like he's just seen some sort of magic trick. "The car wasn't on, and it actually worked."

It's not magic, not even close. "'Course it worked." I coil up the jumper cables and toss them in the passenger seat of the truck, then slam the hood shut. Donnie explained the difference between volts and amps to me once, using water in the sewer tunnels as an example; it made sense, that one's like the diameter of the tunnel and the other's the amount of water going through it, but I can't remember which is which. "They're both twelve volts, but the car's got a lot more amps, even just sitting there. You try and jump a bike from a running car and it'll blow up the bike battery." He doesn't need to know that's from personal experience. Nobody needs to know that. Really.

"You could've just said that. I've got to go dig my keys out of the bushes now."

"How many times did I tell you not to start it?" The engine's starting to warm up, and I twist the throttle a bit. Sounds good; the engine itself is relatively quiet, but the pipe's from a custom Ducati that got dumped into the guardrail of a track somewhere, and it's got this precise, almost bell-like exhaust note. Makes the three cylinders sound like a tenor stuck in a blender when it's nearing redline. I don't need a glasspack loud as a jet engine, don't want people to know I'm coming half a mile away; been a ninja too long to ever be into that sort of thing.

Taki's retrieved his keys from the side of the building; he still looks pissed at me. "Where you gonna go?"

I shrug. "Dunno." I hadn't thought ahead that far, just hoping the bike would start. The fuel gauge warning light's on, and I've got maybe a half gallon left in the reserve, at best. "Not far."

"Figures." He digs out his wallet from his back pocket, extracts a bill, holds it out. "I'm not as stupid as I look, you know. And you're gonna pay me back."

What, he thinks I can just go out and get a job at the local burger joint or something? I just stand there and look at him.

"You think I haven't noticed you're going nuts, stuck here? Like, more nuts than usual, anyway." He holds the money out awkwardly, refusing to give in to my mental commands and put it away. "Look, just take it. It's nothing, okay?"

It's not nothing. "I didn't ask for this." Never asked for fucking charity. Never. I'll walk until my feet bleed and until I fall over from exhaustion rather than take his pity.

He looks like he's about to say something, but then he steps forward, wraps my hand around the cash, steps back again. Starts to say something else, considers a bit before actually speaking. "I think there's a lot you didn't ask for. Now, and then."

Fucker. Goddamn bastard. He has no fucking idea what he's talking about.

"It won't get you far, anyway, not with gas prices the way they are. I'd say take the 110 to the 405 north; 10 west will take you out to Santa Monica and there's stuff to see there, or just keep going north for a bit, and there's all the canyons and Beverly Hills. Get some bugs in your teeth or whatever." He's looking down at the ground now, arms crossed; he has no idea how much I want to hit him right now, if I could only move. "We'll talk when you get back."

I don't want to talk. And I didn't think he wanted me to come back. He's waiting for me to say something, but I can't; there's something stuck in my throat. He looks up eventually. "Yeah. So. Go get a pedestrian for me. Ten points, y'know." And then he's off to the shed; I can hear the basement door slam shut.

The afternoon's gone cold and overcast, clouds rolling over the sun. I wonder how the hell I got to this point.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0ooo0o0o0o0o0o0o

Up on Mulholland, looking down over Los Angeles, a carpet of lights cupped between the Santa Monica Mountains and the ocean. The signs say no parking after nine, but it's been three hours since then and nobody's bothered me. Even if someone had a mind to come looking, the bike's half-hidden behind a stunted pine, and I'm not in a mood to let anyone see me. Cops've apparently got better things to do than roust loiterers from the pullouts. I'm not scared.

It's a winding demon of a road, echoes of rebels and angels, timelost and wanderworn. I can hear the racers off in the distance, can imagine the curves they're pulling by the sound of downshifting, tires squealing, the straights in the rev scream of big-blocks and straight-sixes. Every so often a car will pass my lookout, engine noise dopplering as they thunder past, but most of the action's off to the east. Nobody comes up here at night to drive; in their hearts they're all flying, wax wings safe in the moonlight.

I took it easy on the way up here, part because I didn't know the road and part because I was still unsure of my competency as a mechanic. I think the bike's fine; a good hour on the freeway and another two roaming the foothills and it's yet to explode, catch on fire, or send me careening into the back of some soccer mom's station wagon.

Sunday afternoon, and there was still traffic. I thought I'd seen traffic in New York, but it doesn't have anything on L.A.; a city that grew out rather than up, born in the coming of age of the automobile, where eight-lane freeways sprout like weeds through the cityscape. From this height they glisten, iridescent, like arteries left to run free, thick threads in the city planners' warp and weft, busy even in the dead of night. So many people, moving with such purpose and determination, and I'm sitting here on top of a mountain, alone with my thoughts.

I don't have anywhere to go. I'm at a loss, at a standstill, while the rest of the world spins by, oblivious. No matter how much I've always wanted to be on my own, I've always defined myself by my family, as a part of a whole. We'd each be strong where the other was weak, pieces of a circle, and no matter how much I'd fight against it, fists drawn and words falling, it'd still be there in the end.

And stupid me, that's the way I always thought it would be. It's broken now, and it's all my fault.

I am.

I am a–

No.

The night air's crisp, the mild chill of mid-spring, redolent with the scent of scrub sage and smog. I breathe it in in great lungfuls, as if I could somehow absorb the soul of the city, its purpose, take it on myself when I have nothing left to be.

I have–

No.

Hollywood and Beverly Hills stretch out at my feet, the skyscrapers of downtown off to my left, the lights of LAX in the distance to my right. This is a city of contrasts, an artificial oasis, home to the haves and the have-nots, has-beens and wanna-bes, held taut in the balance between natural disaster and human reaction; it plunges headlong into the twenty-first century without so much as a nod to history. A city in all stages of life, all at once, from inception to growth to decay. Where New York is busy, always busy, L.A. is tense; a simmer ready to boil over at any moment, to explode in earthquakes and wildfires and riots.

I did not choose this city; it did not choose me. Yet here I am, looking out over its breadth like some sort of voyeur. I never wanted to leave New York, didn't plan it, but I'm starting to think that maybe it was for the best. I wasn't a good son or a good brother, particularly, and maybe it's better for my family that I'm not there, always screwing things up. I leave, they'll live. I don't deserve their compassion, not now, if I ever did.

And in time, it'll stop hurting so goddamn much, like I've carved out my heart with a soup spoon. I've earned this pain; I deserve it. If there's one thing I'm sure of, it's that.

I am–

I have–

Can't even say it to myself.

A coyote nudges at a burger wrapper on the other side of the turnout, amidst the broken brown glass of beer bottles and other detritus. The city lights below and the thin clouds above have eclipsed the stars and the first-quarter moon; earlier I saw a shade in the sky where the moon might be, but it's obscured now. The lights reflect off the haze as a sort of sick, ghostly orange, an ominous halo. The coyote doesn't notice me, still scavenging amongst the refuse; he either doesn't know I'm here, or is so accustomed to human presence that he doesn't care. I'd like to think it's the first, that all my training has somehow rendered me invisible to the animal kingdom.

It's probably the second. Wile E.'s muzzle's buried in a discarded bag of fries.

My son, if this is so important to you, then you must do it. There is no choice.

Always a choice, always. I knew it from the start. If I could just say the words, even once, then I wouldn't be here. When is the good of the many less important than the good of the one? The good of my family? I made a choice; it was not made for me, not inevitable. And now I have to live with it, as my family lives it, reaction for action. This is my consequence.

This I must learn on my own. There's no one here to teach me.

I am.

I am–

A car screams by, headlights blazing, tires squealing on even this mild curve. Flying, feet buried in earth, hands scraping the sky.

There's two ways down off this mountain. My choice.

If I ever wanted to fly...

I realize, suddenly and surprisingly, that I'm not scared.

And I'm alive.

I'm outta here.

00o0o0ooo0o0o0o0o0o000o

Notes: The last section is probably as close to a songfic as I will ever write. (The tune of the music totally doesn't fit the characters, but something about the tone of the song just stuck with me, if that makes any sense, and it's why this story is set where it is, instead of some other city on the western edge of North America.) It's also the second-to-last chapter that I have written. That's all I have to say about that.

And yes, the traffic in L.A. is really, really bad. (Numerous online rankings will back up my smidgen of personal experience, here.) Thank you for reading, and please feel free to take some virtual squash bourekakia home with you


	8. Mathematics

Air

a fic by lint. zzzz

Summary: A road trip, complete with Greek takeout and denial. Roughly 2007-movieverse.

Warnings: Swearing. OCs. Angst. First person present. More angst.

Notes: This story takes place one year after the events of the 2007 CGI movie. See end for more specific notes.

Disclaimer: I own no copyrighted characters contained herein. (As if I'd _want_ responsibility for these guys. Shyeah, right.)

Length: 4054

0o00000oo0oo0oo0ooo00o0o0

8. Mathematics

Sofa, blanket, heater. Nice. Warm. Smell of coffee.

Coffee?

I crack my eyes open. There's a mug on the overturned milk crate, covered with a soggy paper plate. I sit up slowly, running a hand down my face; my neck's stiff from using the armrest for a pillow, and it protests as I try to force it into movement. My right shoulder pops hollowly, a painful pinch under the end of my collarbone. Probably slept on it funny.

"Hey, Sleeping Beauty. Welcome back to the land of the living."

I nearly jump out of my shell, accidentally hitting the milk crate with my foot. Mug on the milk crate; mug has coffee. Don't knock the mug over...

Taki's at the table, studiously marking up yet another tax form. He glances over at me before looking back to the calculator. "What'd you do yesterday? You were sleeping like the dead when I got here this morning."

The coffee's safe. I push the paper plate to the side, take a sip. Lukewarm. Gross. "Got some bugs in my teeth." Taki nods, punches a few buttons on the calculator, frowns at the result. My back creaks as I stand up, go over to the kitchenette. Mug in the microwave.

"Didn't know if you liked coffee. There's cream and sugar by the sink if you want."

"Coffee's okay." I'm not Donnie; I don't live off the stuff, but I don't mind a cup first thing in the morning, especially if I wake up early enough that I've got time to enjoy it. I watch the mug spinning on the carousel. Twenty-nine seconds. Twenty-six. Eighteen. I bite back a yawn. Don't think I've slept that hard since...ever. The aftertaste from the first sip's bitter in my mouth; usually I don't use cream, maybe a little sugar if it's strong, but for this coffee I might have to make an exception.

Taki clears the display of the calculator with a sigh, starts punching in numbers again. "I got breakfast too, if you want." He indicates a paper bag by the sink, with the small pile of cream and sugar packets. "Thought you might get a kick out of it."

The microwave beeps and I take the coffee out. I get a spoon from the cabinet and stir in half a sugar. Take a sip; still tastes like mud. Half a packet of Coffeemate. Better. I look in the bag; they're some sort of pastry, vague scent of cinnamon. "Um. Thanks."

He chuckles, doesn't look up from the numbers. "There's this Mexican bakery near my house. They're called conchas. Means shells in Spanish."

Yeah, funny. They smell good, though; maybe later, after coffee. "You have a house?"

"Apartment. Whatever." He clears the screen of the calculator again, hitting the button with more force than necessary, and tosses his pen down on the table in frustration. "Look, you wanna do me a favor and try this? I keep getting a different number every time."

I drag the other chair over to the table and pull the calculator towards me. "What am I doing?" Not like I've got any pressing social engagements or anything.

Taki hands me an inch-thick stack of receipts, paperclipped into piles by month. "Just add it all up. Business expenses. I've been staring at numbers all morning and I keep transposing things."

The calculator's got tiny buttons, and my fingers keep hitting them wrong; I lick the spoon clean of coffee and use the handle to punch in the numbers. One big advantage to being a mutant is that I never have to worry about things like this; there's no way in hell I'd be able to sit down and muddle through this much red tape in real life. "Can't you hire people to do taxes?"

"Costs too much. It usually doesn't take me this long to do all this; I've just been...y'know. Kinda distracted." I look up; he's staring down into his own coffee mug.

As if I needed another reason to feel like crap. "Sorry."

"No, man. That's not it. It's not you. Well, not everything." The tap of the mug being set down on the table; I'm afraid to look away from the receipts, that I'd lose my place and have to start all over again. "Y'see, there's... Was. Not is. This girl I used to know."

Shit. Like I'm Dr. Ruth or something. I am not awake enough to deal with this.

The sound of the mug being shifted around on the table. "We went out for, like, eight years. And then she broke up with me, three years ago this July."

$24.70 at Gilberto's Taco Shop. Didn't think tacos were a business expense.

"We've been friends since then, sorta. Like, we talk. Sometimes. If I'm not drunk when I call her."

It's like quicksand. All the people in the world, and he chooses me to confess to. "You got pen and paper?" $112.11; phone bill.

Taki hands me the post-its and the ballpoint he had tossed on the table earlier; I copy down the number on the calculator screen and set the first pile of receipts aside. "So, yeah. I found out a few weeks back she's getting married to the guy she's going out with now. And it's like, what am I? So this guy's a big-shot lawyer, he's got, like, a million-dollar condo and he knows all the right people. He doesn't know her, not like I know her, and I know she's not going to be happy with all that, in the end. Y'know what I'm saying?"

Not a clue. Like I've got any experience with girls. "Sure." $97.28 for office supplies.

"Right." He doesn't sound convinced. $431.78; A & L Refrigeration.

I spare a glance up, my finger marking the spot I left off on the receipts. "Look, I don't know jack about relationships. If you're looking for advice, you're asking the wrong guy."

"Not advice, no." Taki fiddles with his coffee for a moment, picks it up and takes a sip. "I had my chance, I blew it. That's how things are, and I know it. There's nothing I can do." He sets the cup back down, leans back in the chair, crosses his arms. "It's the big picture. I just hate thinking about it; about her and this asshole, and he probably uses more hair gel than she does, y'know that? I just want her to be happy, and I don't think she's gonna be, not with him."

April and Casey are getting married in two months, beginning of June. I hope they don't ever turn out like this, because Case's my best friend and April's like a sister, or a mother, and I don't know if I could ever favor one over the other if they split.

$2443.54, electric bill. Damn. I shove the paper across the table. "Is that right?"

Taki shrugs. "Dude, you're sitting under what's basically a big-ass fridge. It takes a lot of power to keep things cold." He hands the bill back to me, and I add it to the tally. "Seriously, though. Things get rough, and what do you do?"

"Get some bugs in my teeth." For three days straight. Don't want to think about that. "Hit things, sometimes." Most times. Like he couldn't figure that one out.

"Yeah. Um." He watches as I set aside another stack of receipts and stick a note with the total on top. "Speaking of...hey, I never got the thread out of your hands. Do you need me to–?"

I shake my head. "I pulled those out a week ago. They were getting itchy." Half an hour plus nail clippers and the needlenose pliers from the bike toolkit means no more stitches. $44.93 at Wal-Mart.

"You can do that?" He reaches across the table and grabs my left hand, making me drop the spoon. "Lemme see."

Not sure quite what he's looking for; the smaller cuts are all healed over, and the bigger ones mostly so. There's nothing really left to see but the raised, pale line of the scar across the heel of my hand, and the rows of pocks on either side where the thread was. I'm not going to tell him the stitches were too tight and that's why the extra marks are there; they'll fade with time, like everything else. The first time I sewed someone up didn't turn out nearly as good; Mike's still got a funny scar on the underside of his foot. I let Taki get a good look before I pull my hand back. "Do you want me to add up all this crap or not?"

"Um, yeah. Sorry." He watches as I finish up the March receipts and start on the April pile. Another monster electric bill; more Mexican food. The room's silent except for the low hum of the space heater and the tick of the spoon as I tap the hard plastic calculator keys. $99.18, Costco. "So." I glance up; Taki's got his elbows on the table, holding his coffee cup in the bridge of his hands, that half-confused, half-contemplative look creasing his forehead. "What kind of life do you live?"

Suddenly I can't focus on the receipts any more.

"Oh, shit. I didn't mean– Please tell me you're not going to start that whole catatonic business again; that's not what I meant." Does he really think I'm that fragile? I'm just dealing with stuff, and sometimes I can't think about things. His mug's down on the table now, and he's frantically gesturing around, as if he could swat away my problems like flies. "What I was saying, was, um. Like, you know how to do things. That normal people wouldn't know. And it's like, how'd you learn that? I mean, you know all about me. I've got this business, and it's not the most lucrative thing in the world, especially with the economy the way it is, but it's mine; it's my life. That I had this girl, and it's been three years and I can't get over her, and I don't wanna be at home because there's still empty drawers and her stuff's never going to go there again. I got half a bottle of her shampoo in the shower and I can't get rid of it because it's still good shampoo, but I can't use it; I'm a guy, it smells like flowers. And it's hers. So, yeah." He sits back, arms crossed. "Enough about me. Tell me something about you. Like, where'd you learn to sew up cuts like that? Anyone else, they'd go to a doctor and they'd have all this special stuff. Sterilized or whatever. But you say it's okay to just use peroxide and my secretary's sewing kit, you've done it before, no big. Seriously. Where does that come from?"

There's no way I'm adding stuff up now. All the random things he could ask, and that's it. "Can't exactly go to a doctor, you know."

"Yeah, the whole turtle thing. But–"

"And you just gotta make do with what you got. There's a lot of things that aren't necessary." I point out the scar on the left side of my face; first real-weapons practice, eleven years ago. "Vodka and threads from a sheet." A nasty, jagged two inches near my left elbow, half hidden under my gear; scrap metal plus horsing around in the junkyard when I was fourteen. Lucky I didn't get tetanus. "Carpet fibers and more fucking dish soap than I even want to think about." One of the Nightwatcher's, along the thigh muscle; some punk with a Bowie knife I thought I'd knocked out. "Expired polysporin and dental floss." The life I've led, I'd be nuts if I didn't know how to deal with things like that.

The scar on my cheek's not big, but Taki can't stop staring at it; like trying not to look at the white elephant. "Yeah, but how'd you learn in the first place?"

Donnie's holding the flashlight, his eyes big with fear and curiosity. Leo matches me stare for stare, his fingers tight around mine, clenched as hard as my teeth. I'm not crying, not a bit, because ninjas don't cry. It's the fumes from the alcohol making my eyes water, sharp and oily and musty; industrial, like the tunnels we're supposed to stay away from. I wonder how this can be a good thing.

I'm not crying, though Mike might be, a bit; he's in the corner, saying over and over that he can't look, it's gross, but I catch sight of his face from time to time. The alcohol stings, worse than anything I can remember, but I can still feel the needle as it runs through my skin, burning as if it were still hot from being passed through the candle flame. Callused hands, gentle, delicate, making rhythmic, even stitches; a soft, raspy voice chanting quietly in Japanese, for my ears alone. Even the finest of silk can be repaired, given a caring hand.

"Doesn't matter how I learned." A closed book. Dishonorable.

Taki's looking at me, and I feel as if I were about to burst into flames. "Um. Okay." He doesn't sound convinced. "So what about... Like, the bike stuff. I bet you're gonna say you just read a couple books, and it's like putting Legos together, right?" He picks up his coffee, takes a sip, and grimaces. "And how the hell's a turtle learn to ride a motorcycle anyway?" He turns to the microwave and sticks the coffee in. "I mean, that's just not... It's not simple, like brushing your teeth, the fuzzy end goes in your mouth, y'know?"

That's actually an easy answer. What does he think I am, a complete moron? "It's amazing what you can find on the internet."

The microwave beeps and Taki takes his coffee out, blows across the top of the liquid before taking a sip. "You're shitting me."

"Nope."

"You learned to ride a bike off the 'net. And you're not dead."

Okay, not that part. "A friend taught me that." Although learning to ride from Casey probably wasn't safer in the long run; when he was teaching us to drive up at the farmhouse, April locked herself in a bedroom and pulled the shades, every time. Said she couldn't watch. But we all survived intact, more or less, and we all knew the exact turning radius of a 1951 Chevy truck, down to the inch. I think the field's still got donut tracks in it.

"You have friends?" I don't think he means to sound as surprised as he does.

"Yeah, I got friends." Casey, April, Mrs. Morrison, the Professor, Leatherhead, various aliens. My family. Got enemies, too.

Taki sits back down at the table, puts the mug down but doesn't let it go, like he can't decide if he wants a drink or not. "Ever think about calling them?" I look up; he meets my glance briefly before retreating to his coffee, safe within the circle of his hands.

I pick up the spoon and start crunching numbers again. Back to the beginning of the month; I've lost my place. $2612.90, electricity.

"Look, all I'm saying is that they're your friends, they might want to know where you are. If you're safe."

$35.84 at the taco shop. I've got my finger on the receipts, pinning them down. Not losing my place this time.

"It's been, what, three weeks?"

Three weeks, three days, sixteen hours, forty-eight minutes. Back to $99.18 at Costco.

Taki pulls the spoon from my hand, tosses it in the sink. Should've seen that coming. "They know you've gone on this little vacation?" Asshole.

I pick up the pen, use the end to punch in the numbers. $102.87, phone bill. Taki tries to take the pen away, but I'm on to his game, and I wrestle it out of his grasp. "Gimme that. Your calculator's got fucking tiny buttons and I have big fat fingers." Half a dozen ways to kill with a ballpoint pen, just off the top of my head. But Taki just reaches over, clears the calculator screen with the tap of a button. I miss pinning his finger to the table with the pen by a fraction of an inch, and the black plastic of the pen's barrel cracks under the impact.

"Fuckin' A, man, you trying to skewer me or something? I'm just saying, if they're your friends, they might just give a damn about your welfare. 'Cause it's pretty fucking obvious you don't care about them."

The pen drops to the table, a hollow clatter. I care, and it hurts that they're an honor I don't deserve. "You don't know what you're talking about."

"No, I don't. You won't tell me, and that's okay. Everyone's gotta deal with things in their own way. But shit, man, you gotta deal with it sooner or later, whatever it is. You don't, and you end up like me. I haven't been able to sleep the night through in my own apartment for a month, and that's pretty pathetic."

Yeah, it's pathetic, but I'm not really one to be talking. My way of dealing with things is usually to run away until they sort themselves out, and try not to get myself killed in the meantime. Leo says I just don't want to face my problems, Mike says I draw trouble like ants to sugar, and I'm sure Don thinks I have a death wish; he's usually the one to patch me up afterward. Casey says fuck it, let's go find some punks to bash. I think that's why we get along so well.

Taki's slumped back in his chair, arms crossed. "You don't want to talk to me. Fine. That's nothing new."

I shrug. Anything else, that's okay, but I'm not about to spill my problems like a soap opera sob-fest. And I can't to talk to anyone from home; there's nothing to say. There's a gouge in the tabletop, the size of the pen end, and I run my finger over it. This is what I do; I break things, not fix them, no matter how hard I try. A flash of a hand on my side of the table, and Taki's grabbed the calculator and the remains of the stack of receipts. Three weeks in a basement, and my reflexes are completely gone. "I was doing that."

"Yeah, and you broke my pen trying to stab me." He's hunched over the papers, typing in numbers as if he could punch through the table. "Crazy motherfucking shithead."

So he's pissed off. Whatever. I pull my coffee cup over, and try not to crush it. He wants me to talk? Fine. I'll talk. Just not about that.

"First bike I had, I kinda inherited it. This old guy I barely knew, he just hands me the keys, says there's some things he doesn't want his family to know about, and the bike's part of the deal. Crazy old man; he wants to trust me? But I can keep a secret."

"Fuck, man. What is this, like, your twisted version of an after-school special or something?" Taki's hunched over the calculator, frowning and prodding aimlessly at the buttons.

I take a deep breath, let it out. Not getting mad at him. He's just wound up about his girl. "So, I've got a bike. And gear." And a whole vigilante legacy to go along with it, but I don't want to dig into that can of worms. "Only thing is, it's been sitting around for about thirty years. It might've been fine to just leave it for winter like that, but over that long, and just sitting in a garage, it's basically scrap on wheels. Looks halfway decent on the outside, but mechanically it's all rust and dry rot. There's even been a family of mice living in the seat at one point."

"Yeah, so?"

I'm ignoring him. "But obviously it meant something to this old guy. And it's an old Harley; I fix it up and it's gonna be a pretty sweet ride. So I start looking up stuff online, and looking through junkyards for parts." I take a sip of coffee; it's lukewarm again and on the near side of hideous. "One thing leads to another; I clean out the gas tank, and find that the fuel line's rusted through, or replace the clutch cable just to find that the transmission's frozen up. It's a good couple months, working all night long, every night, before this thing's in running condition, and it doesn't matter that I've got brakes from a Honda on there, or the seat from a Yamaha, or that the wire wheels aren't the shiniest things in the world. The sound it makes when the engine finally turns over...I think it's the sweetest thing I've ever heard."

Taki's stopped abusing the calculator for the moment, and he's got this half-incredulous look. "Dude, you need a tissue or something? You sound like a Hallmark moment."

If it were Mike telling this story, or even Leo, he wouldn't be mouthing off. But I don't have their art with words; the only good stories I tell are jokes. "It's something I've taken care of, taken responsibility for, and it's actually turned out to be worthwhile. No, there aren't going to be parades in Times Square just 'cause I fixed up an old bike, but that ain't the point." No parades because people could walk down the street at night in Harlem, either, but I wasn't looking for anything like that. The Nightwatcher happened because it was something I was asked to do, and more importantly, something I could do. My brothers all have things they enjoy, things they're good at; I watched over the city that year and a half, and nothing had ever felt more right. "It's an accomplishment, even if nobody else knows it. And that's what's important."

"Uh-huh." Taki's leaning back in his chair, cracking the broken plastic bits of the pen together. "So if it was so important, why don't you still have it?" He levels the pen up at the stairway. "I may not know much about motorcycles, but that's not a Harley up there."

I shrug. "That's not–"

"Don't tell me. You crashed it, didn't you?"

I'm trying very hard not to be offended. If Taki knew how close he had come to getting strangled over the past three weeks, he wouldn't have said half the things he did. "My friend's got it. The one who taught me to ride." And Casey was completely ecstatic when I tossed him the keys and told him not to park it on the street without a cover, because his bike was a total piece of crap. "It was his idea to build this one, and he even went shopping for parts we couldn't dig out of junkyards. And when we figured out we were in way over our heads, another friend stepped in and pretty much built it from the ground up." Brother. Donnie's my brother, and he deserves more credit than I could ever give him. "It's a total mutt, but it runs better than most of the stuff on the road. Better than the one I fixed, anyway."

Taki's abandoned the pen for his coffee. "And you don't want to have to tell this guy you broke the bike he built. Is that it?"

It's the least of my worries. "Sorta."

"That's the fucking lamest excuse I've ever heard."

Yeah, it is. I take back the calculator and pen, and pull the stack of receipts back over to my side of the table. "You gonna let me do this now?"

A noncommital wave of the hand. "Hey, you actually want to do my taxes, feel free." I've finished the April pile and have gotten halfway through May before he pipes up again. "Why'd you give away the old bike, anyway?"

Because I was given an ultimatum. Because the Nightwatcher was a threat to my family. Because the people above had police, and government, and laws, and all we had was each other. "It was just a machine, in the end."

$109.94, phone bill.

I am such a fucking hypocrite.

0o0o0oooo0o0o0o0o0o00o0o0

Notes: So. This is all I have written. I originally conceived of this story in three parts; these first eight chapters make up part one. This story is completely still alive in my mind; it has one of the loudest, most persistent voices of anything I've tried to write. But my biggest problem right now is time–time to sit down and listen to the characters and actually put words on the page. But this is one of those things where I've pretty much dug my own hole, and until I can figure out how to climb out, this is where things stand. My deepest apologies for leaving you hanging.

I never intended to post an incomplete story, but when I began writing this, I promised myself that the only situation in which that would happen would be if the idea behind this story actually happened to me. Well, it happened. Close enough, anyway. And my horoscope really did say to share things. I'm not big into astrology, but coincedences do happen. Sometimes they're good; sometimes they run over you with a bulldozer. It's been a rough road so far, and everything ahead looks rocky, but I can't thank you all enough for helping me through this.

No Greek food this time. To everyone who has reviewed, alerted, favorited, or simply just read this brainchild o' mine, you get fresh, homemade conchas. Still warm from the oven, cloud-soft and chewy at the same time, with coarse-ground cinnamon crisp in the dough and the butter-flour-vanilla-sugar icing just cool enough to hold its shape. My infinite thanks to you all.

Dagnabbit, I wanna bake now!


End file.
